


Chief at the Ends of the World

by thewhitecirrus, Toothlesslove (thewhitecirrus)



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Friendship, Gen, Politics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2020-10-24 23:10:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20714090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewhitecirrus/pseuds/thewhitecirrus, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewhitecirrus/pseuds/Toothlesslove
Summary: After Toothless and the dragons leave for the hidden world, Hiccup must face who he is as a chief in a world of hostile rulers and Viking raids. Forced to travel to Europe and tame a dragon more challenging than ever, he must discover how to save the last of the dragons and lead his people forward in a post-dragon world. With the loyalty of Toothless and Astrid, he discovers a new destiny.





	1. Victory of Tears

Sunrise glinted off the rooftops and smoke curled from dragon nostrils as Vikings gathered in the village plaza. The smell of burnt wood tainted the air forty feet from the nearest structure from where Hiccup stood in the plaza center. He'd only first stepped on this forsaken rocky island ten days ago, but already the people's faces grew impatient in their eyes and defiant in their hearts. Children spat at his boots; old men grimaced and stood to full height as he walked past their dwelling places. It was a small island, hilly with substantial forest but even more bare rocks for beaches, and it reminded him of Berk, the old Berk, the one with dragons in the cliffsides living among a people who had long ago made peace with their enemies. But those days were over now, and this wasn't Berk. The only dragons here withered inside cages, waiting for the day they were sold and separated from the only life they knew.

What was he doing here, except to liberate what these people had enslaved? Then why did he feel like a conquerer?

Astrid, Valka, Snotlout, Spitelout, and his other warriors stood in line on either side of him, as the people whom they had fought for ten days now stood before Hiccup. From what he could tell, every man, woman, and child was in attendance to listen to what he had to say. Even the village chief, just a few days before so arrogant and fierce in the battle on the beach, stood in the front of his warriors with downcast eyes before the Berkians who had won against him. Only his second-in-command dared to lift his gaze towards Hiccup, and the hate within those eyes spoke more than words ever could. Hiccup cleared his throat, wishing painfully that he wasn't alone here, the only one to speak and calm their frustrated anger.

"People of Minkelsk," he began, "our two tribes have fought bitterly over our disagreement about dragons. As chief of New Berk, I alone am responsible for the war between us."

Hiccup paused as the discontent rippled and shook through the crowd, like angry storm waves subdued and imprisoned in a bay.

"I assure you, the only reason we ever entered this conflict was to free creatures who were helpless," he said.

In the front row, a woman shouted back at him. "My brother was butchered by these helpless dragons!"

"Yeah, terrorist!" another muttered in agreement, though this newfound defiance quickly cooled in the air above their heads. Hiccup had grown used to that word. He slapped his left hand sideways, a silent command to Snotlout to stop edging forward, sword in hand, towards the general direction of the protesting woman in the crowd. Enough with the blood and the swords. Times like these reminded him that he wasn't just any Viking. He'd reluctantly taken the title of chief when his father died that long year ago, and he had tried to use it for good - and yet here he was, perhaps making the worst mistakes of his life. If there was anyone who could stop the bloodshed, it was him. And then again, only he could have been knuckle-headed enough unintentionally to conquer another tribe while saving dragons.

"There is no more reason to fight each other, but I demand absolute peace. If you persist to enslave and sell these dragons throughout the archipelago, we will hold this island and save the dragons ourselves. But if you free the dragons, I promise you -"

He paused, casting his eyes across the audience, to the little children who clung to their mothers and hated him in their eyes. A commotion rolled across the people, faces upturned in skeptical expectation.

"- we will withdraw from your island peacefully and never threaten you again. It's your choice. I give you a week to decide."

A hitch caught in his throat at the end of the ultimatum. Look at him, making threats, blustering like every other Viking worth his muscle. Whom did he think he was? He was a hiccup - a scrawny, skinny image of a young man barely out of boyhood, made into a chief simply because his father had died a year ago. These villagers must have thought as much as he finished his speech and hastily joined the ranks of his warriors. He resisted the temptation to downcast his eyes, though he badly wanted to see something else, to be somewhere else. With Astrid and Snotlout behind him, he walked through the center of a crowd that effortlessly parted to let him through. One of the village elders led him to an exquisitely designed house that belonged to the chief and his family.

This was meant to be his temporary residence on an island that he wanted no part of. Its only fault lay in its path between the hidden world of dragons and the majority of islands to the east and south, from whom it had developed its lucrative dragon selling operations that had persisted for hundreds of years. The trade was vastly extensive; the details, grotesque. Dragons were sold not just for slave labor and the horrors of the entertainment ring, but for mass slaughter for their hides, their tusks and claws, and their meat. A whole generation of species was being systematically wiped out and dragon families torn apart as thousands of their babies were plucked from seaside nests and sold as exotic delicacies for the wealthy customers of the populated southern lands, lands even beyond the realm of the Viking. The demands of trade seemed to have burgeoned dramatically in recent years, according to records in the Great Hall of this island. Minkelsk wasn't the only villain in the trade; no, it was just the spearpoint of a very extensive operation among many Viking island chains. And yet somehow, thanks be to Odin, despite this horrible trading network and distant travels of this people and their ilk, they had never discovered the coveted home of the dragon, a home that Hiccup knew and protected above all the things in his heart.

Shimmering wooden carvings of dragons, obsidian just like ocean-washed stones, rapt his attention on the mantlepiece in the large main room. Sleek, smooth bodies, great wingspans, beautiful fires jetting from their mouths. Details too real to be created from mere distant observation. Such detail that he had not witnessed with his own eyes in far too long.

Before he could stop himself, he was dreaming of Toothless again. Not just any dragon, and not even just any Night Fury, the king of all dragons. The dragon who knew him better than any human did, the dragon who never left his side nor ever let harm fall his way in the long six years of their friendship. _His best friend_. The bright, green eyes happy with life, the smoothly scaled skin underneath him as they rode together in the sky, countless skies of night and day and storm and windswept sunlight - an endless paradise, a home in the unknown between two beings of different species and yet the very same soul. Hiccup knew Toothless, he knew all of him, and Toothless knew Hiccup, right down to every weakness and every insecurity. He had shared things with that dragon that no one would understand. And the dragon had shared something with him that the world still did not know: Love. That a beast and a monster who could tear your children apart and set fire to your village had the ability not just to be kind and gentle, but to love you with the fiercest, deepest loyalty - _that_ was the impossible idea that changed his life. That dragon named Toothless changed his entire world. Because of what Toothless had shown him, he knew there was a better future that was possible, a future worth fighting for.

And now, Toothless was gone. All the dragons were gone. He had told Toothless to go, for the sake of all dragons in this cruel world, and so Toothless did. Every last free dragon in the known world, who could hear the Night Fury's call, had fled to safety into that hidden place under the sea, the original home of the dragon, never to be disturbed by the violence of humankind ever again. And that meant that he also must endure one last price of love, for the sake of both their worlds: To remain separate from Toothless for the rest of their lives.

And that's when he realized, standing beside the fireside of a foreign chief's home, his hand caressing the mantelpiece of cold, dead carvings, that tears were dangerously close to spilling from his eyes.

He'd been haunted by such tears far too often during these past several weeks, ever since he had told Toothless goodbye.

In that moment full of memory, the last person that he wanted to see was Snotlout. And yet there Snotlout was, in front of him by the fire, as if all Hiccup's grief had blinded his sight as well as his heart. How Snotlout got there, with the smuggest expression on his face, was beyond Hiccup. The painfully tender privacy that he craved for was gone.

It was clear that Snotlout had seen his emotions. Hiccup tossed his head, and, almost in rebellion, let the tears streak down his cheeks. But the expression on Snotlout's face changed, tempered its glee just a little, and Hiccup remembered him, too. For Snotlout also had to say goodbye to Hookfang, his cantankerous but beloved Monstrous Nightmare. Three weeks ago, it was the first time Hiccup had seen Snotlout openly weep in public. And so all the people of Berk had to deal with the intense pain of losing their dragons, everyone in her or his own way. In this sense, Hiccup couldn't be selfish at all. He was their leader after all, and he led a people still in mourning.

Snotlout was sensitive enough not to mention his chief's tears, yet he was riled up and excited over something else that Hiccup had said to the people of Minkelsk.

"Hiccup, these people kill dragons! It's stupid to offer them a whole week. Maybe just a day or two at most, but that's it!" Snotlout told him. The young Viking didn't seem to mind that villagers of the island were milling around in the same room, clearly able to hear the youthful warrior's discussions with his chief. Snotlout had no concept of diplomacy.

Hiccup swallowed the remainder of his salty sadness, and forced his mouth open, trying to sound remotely confident in his beliefs. "I don't believe we have the right to change a people's way of life without giving them enough time to think about it," was all he could think of saying, and instantly regretted how hypocritical it sounded. Didn't he just fight a war to snatch away a people's livelihood from themselves? Imposing his own morality on a captive populace was his new forte, apparently. If only he remembered that it all began accidentally during the first dragon raid that he had led since the dragons had disappeared. Just because free dragons were safe in the hidden world didn't mean that this safety extended to all the caged and enslaved dragons scattered across the Viking archipelago. And so his mission to save dragons was more urgent than ever, as the populations of free dragons mysteriously fled from the human world and humans ramped up their pursuit of what was once an abundant resource easy for the exploitation. Evil was becoming desperate. And such desperation meant that his world was more perilous than ever. Hiccup and his people had never stopped their raids to save the dragons, and now this was the consequence of their vigilantism.

But how a battle begins doesn't matter; it's how it ends and who ends it that does.

"I'd say we keep the island and stop this dragon business in its tracks," Snotlout informed Hiccup, as if the decision was the easiest thing in the world. The boy-warrior, for that's what he was, always a rival from Hiccup's youth and now forced to live under Hiccup's command, suddenly looked proudly into Hiccup's eyes, almost yearning for his approval. "I can lead this island," Snotlout volunteered. "Put me in charge while you rule New Berk, and I can stamp out any dragon-selling activities in their tracks!"

"You said 'in their tracks' twice, El Capitan! You left your brains on the battlefield!" Tuffnut roasted Snotlout from across the room. The twin snickered with his sister, Ruffnut, as they both screwed their faces into horrible contortions in Snotlout's direction.

"Shut up! None of you don't know anything about being chief!" Snotlout shouted back. The twin's irreverence had shattered Snotlout's delicately cultivated ego.

Yet for the first time in his life, Hiccup had clearly seen the ambition of his cousin Snotlout. Hiccup had always known it was there, and it was annoying, especially in the days of their childhood when he bullied Hiccup. But this was different. Snotlout was serious. He had mentioned wanting "to be in charge" of the island of Minkelsk two other times since they first landed here. At first Hiccup chalked it up to Snotlout's ever-present trivial boasts, the kind that had become mildly amusing after years without results or intent behind them. Yet Hiccup had the feeling that the joke was up. Perhaps losing Hookfang was the catalyst Snotlout needed to reignite his age-old desires and turn his rivalry with Hiccup into a new power struggle.

Just as Hiccup was feeling squeezed in from all sides, something new and urgent pushed all other thoughts away from his mind. Astrid Hofferson strode up to him and Snotlout as they stood by the fireside, with a message and a neutral objectivity on her face that masked the opposite reaction in his heart. "Hiccup, I need to talk with you in private. The chieftains of the archipelago have requested your presence at an official gathering two days' sail from here."

"It's about this island, isn't it?"

Hiccup already knew what they wanted. Judging by the deep concern now seeping through her warrior exterior, the furrows deepening through her face and the softness of her eyes mitigating her stare into his, Astrid also knew it.

"If I don't come, it means war," he said.

"Yeah, Hiccup."


	2. A Man Among Chiefs

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third entered the Great Hall of the island Skreva, the main island of the Viking tribe the Skrevans and their numerous allies in adjacent islands of the sea of Svelling. When Hiccup was a boy living on Berk, these islands were faraway lands, filled with tales of Vikings who accomplished great deeds and ruled powerful kingdoms. Berk was too far and too small for regular interaction with these southern coastlines, yet every decade, the chiefs of all the neighboring seas and their many islands would gather to the great isle of Skreva. The gathering of chieftains was a Viking tradition that reached back more than a thousand years. Leaders and scoundrels alike showed their true selves to the peoples of the Vikings in this Great Hall of halls.

This was the gathering of chieftains that came to discuss destroying the dragon scourge once and for all, and that itself was destroyed by Drago Bludvist's enslaved dragons all those years ago, and from which his father, Stoick the Vast, had returned as the lone survivor.

This was the gathering of chieftains that had been rebuilt to its old glory, that had allied itself with new powerful forces from eastern lands, warlords who promised to protect all Vikings through the use of an obedient dragon army, and whose ambitions were thwarted by the death of Grimmel the Grisly at the hands of Stoick's dragon-loving son, Hiccup.

This was that gathering of chieftains that now asked him, Stoick's heir, to answer for himself for winning a war in the defense of dragons, the hated enemy of the Viking.

Into this judgment hall, Hiccup brought only two of his people with him, as the Viking chieftains had requested of him. These were Astrid Hofferson, his closest confidante and General of Berk's armed forces, and Spitelout Jorgenson, second-in-command of his father, Stoick. Spitelout was the only Berkian alive who had accompanied Stoick during that ill-fated gathering of chieftains more than twenty years ago. Perhaps his presence among the chiefs would add a semblance of authority to Hiccup's extremely new and much-doubted reign as chief of New Berk. Then again, maybe it wouldn't.

As a proud Jorgenson, Spitelout made every effort to explain to Hiccup of his son Snotlout's impressive credentials as a leader for Berk's new island possession. His son was a natural, he said. It was time talented leadership were recognized, he offered. A sharing of authority would pump confidence into the people of Berk who were clearly tired of war, he said yet again on the long, two-day sail to Skreva.

"Why don't _you_ rule Minkelsk yourself, Spitelout? Surely your qualifications are perfect for the job, excelling even your son's?" Astrid replied acidly after a boast too far from Spitelout. He curtly replied, "I'm a proud father of a Jorgenson! I won't stand in the way of my son's destiny!"

"Hmm -- destiny!" Astrid had huffed under her breath.

Finally, Hiccup couldn't take it any longer. He stood up to Spitelout in the hold of the ship, with Astrid and the rest of the crew present, and told him flat-out that Minkelsk wasn't for sale.

"No one is ruling that island. It's _not_ ours to keep! We fought there for one and only one reason -- to save dragons from certain death and enslavement in the thousands. And that's all I will do."

In front of everyone, Spitelout coolly replied. "We bought that island with our own blood. Remember Asmund and Pettibark's deaths? They died for _your_ utopia. You may be chief, Hiccup, but all our dragons are gone. You sent them away. You can't expect us to keep fighting for what we no longer have."

The pain was evident in Spitelout's voice, the loss of his beloved Nadder, Kingstail, mixed into the pride and the ambition and the jealousy. Surely he had watched his son mourn his dragon leaving, and seen the devastation of all the people of Berk as their dragons left them, never to return. Surely, Hiccup was the person who told the Night Fury to lead the dragons away, and so all this pain and loss was Hiccup's fault.

Surely, these people that Hiccup had tried so hard to teach in those six years of friendship with dragons, still couldn't see that those dragons were never "theirs"? Maybe some had, and some hadn't, accepted that paradox of love, that possession can never replace the true affection of letting go those who are closest to your heart, so that they can fly on their own. No, the pain was immense, and it demanded reimbursement: A friend exchanged for a conquered subject, and colonial rule the fragile substitute for love.

Throughout the rest of the journey, Hiccup remained silent. He was soon to face the wrath of every Viking chief, and yet his own people didn't believe in him. Maybe it was just Spitelout and Snotlout, but he had a feeling that other Berkians had similar opinions. What could he, the chief, give them that could replace the friendship torn from their lives? What could play surrogate to a dragon?

"Hiccup." He heard his name as he was walking up the steps of Skreva's Great Hall, his mind so full and confused that it had almost forgotten his constant companion by his side. Astrid looked regal, though a little strange, without her dragon-raiding suit of armor, which, for this occasion, she had exchanged for a red bodice and a fur-lined cape that almost touched the ground. Earlier, she had tried to get him to wear a brown-furred cape as well, reminiscent of Stoick's, which of course he had to refuse. He was uncomfortable enough without channelling his father. Now she stopped him on those steps to the Great Hall, seconds before he had to face those chieftains, with just a word and a look that said everything.

She smiled tenderly, a rare levity after a fortnight of war. "I may be Berk's General, but you are our Chief, and I don't want you to forget that."

Hiccup sighed. "It's all I've been trying to forget," he tried to joke, but it came out more honest than he wanted.

The night sky shone remarkably bright, the ocean a distant lullaby as people slowly rose and fell around them, crowds of strangers who paid them no attention like seagulls do for pebbles on the beach. It would have been a wonderful night to walk in the streets of this vibrant city, admiring the buildings with so many strange, luxurious designs. Underneath one of these edifices Astrid paused, planting herself at the edge of the stone stairs leading up to the ancient entrance. Her visage complemented well its somber atmosphere. She said, "That's why I don't want you to forget who you are, even if you never wanted it in the first place. Hiccup, you are a leader now, and you must be every bit an equal as any chief in that Hall." Her glance flickered to the massive obsidian doors, carvings of heroes piercing their swords into dragons, species long extinct and men long dead. Her face returned to his, both hardened and softened at the very same time, as if that were possible. "I need you to be strong tonight. They will try to break you, but for the sake of New Berk, and not just dragons, you can't let them. You mustn't let them win over you. Be calm, and remember that I and Spitelout have your back. If you ever are in trouble, just signal me." And she parted the left edge of her cape ever so carefully from her hip; down below, strapped to her leg, was a long, thin sword.

Hiccup peered up at her quickly, his voice barely audible. "Could it come to that? They don't allow weapons in the gathering, besides the guards. I don't want _anything_ to happen, Astrid!"

Her hot, moist breath fanned his cheek, her face very near his as she leaned in close, her eyes penetrating into his. "Toothless can no longer protect you. None of our dragons can."

She had been the strongest of them all when she had said goodbye to Stormfly three weeks ago. The first to follow Hiccup's example, the first to remove her dragon's saddle and tell her to fly free. Astrid never cried for Stormfly, yet she talked long hours with Hiccup afterwards about the memories that she and her Deadly Nadder had shared together. Astrid was as independent as they came, the most stubborn woman he knew, and yet even she had come to rely on and love that dragon like it was part of her own legs and arms and torso and soul. She had something unspoken and distinct with Stormfly, an affection that wasn't as overt as that of the other riders and their dragons -- and yet nevertheless, real. Stormfly and she loved one another. They were a team that the world had split asunder. Wherever Stormfly was, perhaps she mourned for her rider just as much as Hiccup knew Astrid did for her dragon, deep down inside.

Hiccup smiled quietly on the edge of those stairs, the salty breeze warm as it drifted past them, laden with the smells of household fires and marketplace music. It could feel like a wonderful time to be alive. "Don't worry, Astrid. I really will try my best in the Hall. I just …. appreciate everything you're doing for me. Thank you."

He was already scaling the steps again as she attempted one more encouragement. "Don't worry about Spitelout or Snotlout. They are just hurting, and they will come around eventually," she offered, but her comfort now was no longer on his mind. He had a job to do. And waiting in anticipation wasn't getting him anywhere. He was very grateful that she was here tonight, and that at least, he didn't have high expectations for himself.

His small store of confidence strangely didn't abandon him as he entered the grand Hall of Skreva. It was built larger and more extravagantly than his memories had recorded from his father's age-old tales. Its internal structure must have been built from an ancient grove of conifer giants, as huge trunks denuded of branches rose to the darkened ceiling a hundred feet above the floor. From the yawning cavern of darkness curved down huge canvases of brightly painted mythologies, stretching like silken Spinnerwing threads all the way to the people below. Attendants, soldiers, and servants gathered in the outer edges of the circular Hall, the mingling of many conversations eerily reminiscent of the hum of a dragon flock fast asleep. The floor fell away in discrete steps towards the center of the structure, so that the center appeared as a sharp-edged depression in the earth, like a shallow cove or an expansive kill ring. Yeah, it was probably more like the latter. Hiccup wouldn't have been surprised that the meeting hall doubled for a dragon slaughter ring whenever a new shipment of freshly-caught dragons arrived at the city.

There were many young attendants threading their paths through the crowd, each seeking his assigned chief in order to be ready to serve in whatever capacity the chief demanded for the duration of his visit to Skreva. Too late, Hiccup developed the sunken realization that he was due just such a privilege. One such boy, barely into his mid-teens, approached Hiccup and asked him if he were one of the chiefs. It was weird to hear himself say, "yes." As the young servant guided him ever deeper within the Hall, Hiccup glanced once more as Astrid receded into the crowd. She and Spitelout would sit somewhere in the upper reaches far distant from the ground floor where he would sit among the other chieftains. He lost sight of both of them rather quickly, and failed to find their location even with Astrid's hurried instructions on their seating arrangements. So that's why she had worn the red bodice, so that she could stand out in the crowd. Well, for whatever good it would do for him now.

A set of thirty to forty tall, stocky, and thickly robed men were led by young boys through a funnel-shaped path into the ring, directing them to two rows of seats arranged in a perfect circle. Why did it seem that Vikings unfailingly selected the largest and squarest men out of all their ranks to become their leaders? Judging by their occasional glances his way, he figured that his own purpose for being here was also on a few of their minds. His place was among the meek attendants, unnoticed and unnamed, whose main torment was to ensure the most prestigious seating arrangements were chosen for their new masters.

Hiccup turned to the young man aiding him in this very task now, the skinny teen with bright gray eyes and hands as large as dinner plates. His threadworn white shirt contrasted with the luxuriantly silken fur of his coat, the result perhaps of living in poverty while serving the rich. Judging by how often the boy snuck a glance in his direction, eying him from crown to toe, this boy expressed more than a passing interest in Hiccup. Suddenly Hiccup felt a pang of shyness, and to his own consternation failed to say anything as the boy led him to a seat on the far side of the ring. It wasn't until Hiccup had found the seat and then uttered a meager "thank you" that the teen smiled broadly and replied, "It's my pleasure, chief Hiccup." He immediately retreated to the back of the wall with the other servants before Hiccup could pursue further conversation.

A formal start to the night's proceedings was underway. Thankfully, Hiccup noticed that few of the chiefs seemed to take interest in him once the gathering officially begun; most where chatting with fellow chieftains whom they saw only a few times a year. Island life was such that some tribes may only see one another every few months or even years, so this was a gathering not just of business but of sociality and political friendship. Though not every tribe had the means or the diplomatic presence to attend, the ones who did represented the major powers of the Viking world. He may not have known all their faces, but he had heard their stories and drawn maps of their lands. Many times he had explored their coastlines and soared above their mountains upon Toothless' back. On more than one occasion, he had led raids on villages during the night, freeing dragons from a life of slavery and death before anyone awoke from their beds. He had naively believed that shadows and cleverness would conceal his reckless do-goodery. Now, he wasn't so sure.

Just as the ruminations in his own head intensified, a chief rose up and began to call to order the discussions of the night. Whenever a chief had something to say, he stood in the center and made his case before the Great Hall. This particular man appeared to be the Skreva chief himself, named Hagen of Red Mountain, or just Hagen the Red. The title originated from brightly-hued mountain ranges that form Skreva's backbone. The man very much embodied a mountain anchoring itself at the center of a continent. Adorned with vermillion robes, jeweled chains, and a blood-red bear cape, Hagen was one of the most flamboyantly-dressed men in the room. His behavior was more subtle than his choice of clothing, however. He spoke with a firm, warm, and unhurried tone, directing the proceedings with the ease of a ruler who has intimate loyalty of audience and leaders alike.

So drawn was Hiccup to the aura of this man, and lost in his own dark reverie, that he scarcely realized that he had failed in his attention toward the actual proceedings of the night. Several individuals had already presented their cases to the chieftains from topics as broad as persistent famine to peculiarly difficult-to-catch murderers. These issues, doubtlessly important to somebody, had instead poured through Hiccup's mind as fluidly as a stream through fishnets. The night wore on, Hiccup's back grew sore, and he felt increasingly claustrophobic in his own chair. Dad had always chided him for his very short attention span. Stoick had tried pounding the instructions of life into him as best he could, but his mind was as light as dragon's wings and just as swift to escape. Now that bad habit was costing him dearly.

He fumbled through the folds of his leather flight suit and found his notebook. Yeah, it was pretty dumb to be wearing a flight suit when one no longer flew a dragon. He began scribbling awkwardly into the notebook on his lap while trying to give his rapt attention to the fifth speaker. He jotted down whatever seemed like it could be … what, important? More information on this tribe, this leader, a person whom he may work with in the future and thus become relevant to Berk's welfare. Yeah, that was as good a reason as any to keep writing and prevent himself from falling asleep during the meeting.

Suddenly, he heard his name called.

"Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, Chief of New Berk."

It came out of nowhere. He scrambled to his feet and knocked his notebook off his lap. People started laughing. It was an excruciatingly weird feeling to go from boredom to terror in a fraction of a second; his senses had only caught the name. He stood there, wishing suddenly that his summoner would repeat what exactly he was being called for.

"I'm glad that our star apprentice has been so studious in our proceedings," smiled the Skreva chief. Taking a comfortable seat in a chair adorned with dragon skin and bone, he scrutinized Hiccup with a keen, discriminating eye, like how a mother inspects fresh cuts of beef at the butcher. "I'm glad you're able to join us. I'm sure that all of us would like to send our deepest condolences for the loss you have suffered. Stoick was a very great chief, and he will be missed by all who admire his conviction and respect his leadership."

A rumble of assent rose gently from the crowd. The feeling in the room seemed genuine. Hiccup held his breath, and strode to the center of the ring lined with men on all sides. And he thanked them.

"Thank you, everyone, very much. Me and -- my people -- really appreciate this."

A chipper round of "ayes" circled the big room all around him, falling back swiftly into silence after its perfunctory revolution. Many Vikings held his father in high regard, and that was something to be grateful for. But that wasn't why they were here tonight. The turn was his now.

"You called me here to talk about Minkelsk and, ugh, the war we have fought there."

Hiccup drew in a sharp breath, caught between his instincts of rushing headlong in explaining the whole sordid affair, or hesitating on the grounds that he was diving in all too fast. But he wasn't able to realize any of those options with another harried, nervous sentence. Hagen the Red rose up suddenly from his chair of dragon bone and held out a hand in Hiccup's direction. Hiccup stopped talking completely, swiveling his head in the direction of Hagen's summoning finger, toward another man at the opposite end of the chieftain circle.

"Chief Barmek, before we listen to the fullness of Chief Hiccup's testimony, do you have a formal complaint to express to Hiccup and his tribe?"

"Yes I do!" barked a man with a round, bald head and a mouth missing all its teeth on the upper jaw. It was miraculous that he still possessed a decent command of language. "Outrageous! Me and Minkelsk are allies -- family! Many generations. My right is war and I should have my right on the spoils of that boy and his treachery!"

Other chiefs replied acidly to the first and to each other. "You'd drag us into war? Remember who your allies are!" cried out a middle-aged man in the second row to the left. "I think an alliance of chiefs should keep the peace in the islands and prevent rogue tribes from stirring things up," suggested someone behind Hiccup. Said another: "Everyone is avoiding the clearest danger involved -- Berk and its dragons could systematically challenge the chieftains and control the rest of us through fear and even outright violence."

Hiccup knew that no one could hear him even if he did bluster like the rest. Neither his lungs nor his soul were built for that sort of game. These people were so enamored with each other and their hard-baked politics that they seemed to have already decided what they wanted to believe about him. Not that he minded personally, having grown used to low opinions from peers. But on this night, when the lives of dragons and friends were both at stake, he didn't plan to play the fool, not anymore.

In a swift motion, he strode up to Hagen the Red. The man looked supremely content reclining within that throne of his, though his face did betray a tasteful excitement with the proceedings. "Chief Hagen, could you allow me to talk to the others? To share my side of the story?"

"Your side?" And the smile that Hagen bestowed upon him made him feel squirmy inside, something both gracious and rotten at the same time. But whatever the chief was thinking, he kept his public persona cordial and diplomatic. Without shouting or rasping, he raised his voice across the Hall. "My friends, I suggest that you put your questions to Hiccup directly. Youth cannot wait for the miseries of the old."

That was one way to get all the angry eyes back on him again. Chief Barmek snorted and went straight to the point: "I'm done waiting. I declare war on you and your wretched bandits. I defeat you and make you my bar-boy!" he howled with ridicule, quite unaware that he was the only one who caught the joke.

There was one who addressed the chiefs next, who was tall and narrow, a white beard plunging down his chest just as a cliff dives to meet the water. He rose with dignity from his seat and folded his hands across the white silken fabric of his tunic. He peered at Hiccup without forgiveness. "Why do you attack and attempt to control a small tribe that doesn't belong in your family blood? Do you realize that you have fewer resources, smaller numbers, and a reputation for provoking warfare among not only your neighbors, but with even the farthest islands of the eastern fjords?" He turned to his compatriots on the right and on the left, nodding his head delicately, furiously, yet never raising his voice. "Do you intend to consummate your raiding with an actual war that you cannot win and will lead to the destruction of your own people?"

Indeed. Finally his worst fears were spoken aloud. This was the reason he had been summoned here, the cause of his unease ever since he stepped off the bloody beaches of Minkelsk as a victor in a battle he never wanted. That was the problem. Not even he believed in his own cause anymore. But was that really true? Could he truly let the anger and the confusion over the truth in this place infiltrate his mind like all the others? Had he forgotten why he came here?

"No," Hiccup said. He leveled his gaze towards the chief who had asked the rhetorical question, yet his mind envisioned the dragon skins and bones of Hagen's throne, and his heart thudded with the throng of the people in the Great Hall. This was his moment to speak.

"The people of Berk don't intend to wage war to conquer their neighbors. I led them for one purpose only -- to free dragons from abuse and certain death. Yes, I said it, we protect dragons. I know they don't have much love here."

He abruptly paused, needing to make the case for dragons. But that wasn't as straightforward as it sounded. A public trial, with all its flaming rhetoric and hardened convictions, wasn't the easiest place to change hearts and minds.

As if telepathic of Hiccup's anxiety, Chief Barmek jostled back onto the stage, toothless jaw grinning and barnacled cape wafting with the smell of wine. A nasty necklace of human teeth hung down from his invisible neck and swayed as he stood up and approached Hiccup in the ring. Joy upturned the corners of his lips.

"Admit to stealing, then?" His voice boomed deeply and brought a silence to the darkened audience. He stood a clear foot above Hiccup as both faced each other from opposite sides of the ring. "Admit to terrorism and common criminality. You be friend of the dragon? He's our enemy! For all time, all Vikings everywhere. We conquer dragons." His steely eyes smirked at Hiccup, yet turned furtively to Hagen's thoughtful face between them.

Hiccup's voice was nowhere near as deep, but it was strong and convicted, and somewhat reckless, too. "I'm a terrorist to some of course. Sure I steal what some people call possessions. That's your problem. You claim to possess what only the gods can truly own. Can you own a dragon any more than you can own fire, or thunder, or lightning? No one can steal from the sky or the earth or the sea. Dragons belong to nobody."

He was done addressing these chieftains. He gazed up, at the people watching silently, and suddenly it seemed that there was a sky behind them instead of a cold dark ceiling. He spoke to them. "We Vikings have lived with dragons for thousands of years -- for as long as we can remember. They are as constant to us as the storms that rock our islands. And they demand just as much respect. As warriors, isn't respect and honor everything that we are?"

The whole spectrum of emotions, of thoughts, of feeling, could be seen in the faces up there. Faces that appeared incredulous, as if Hiccup were questioning their very identities. Other faces worn and indifferent to the arguments, who only came to experience a little entertainment apart from a world of daily suffering. And yet others, harder to read, at first appearing blank and wide-eyed -- attentive, confused, wondering. Small children's faces in-between the adults, the widest eyes by far. And there it was also, the sight of a red bodice identifying the fiercest face among them all -- a face as immovable as the highest peaks when a gale rages.

"And now, after hundreds of years of fighting dragons, they are finally disappearing. Even those on Berk are gone. The rumors are true. You are witnessing the end of everything Vikings have known our entire lives. The creatures that are as fantastic as the oceans and as fierce as ourselves have now decided that they will stay with us no longer." Hiccup tried to look into the heart of every face, but they were all a blur. His heart thumped wildly as if it were audible. And he said, "Is it so much to ask that you free those dragons that you've captured, so that they can return to their own kind? As a proud people of honor, is it too difficult for us to give respect one last time to these old enemies of ours, before we see them no more, and our stories of them turn into legend?"

For the first time in the Great Hall, there was silence. Not the intermittent type between eager conversations, a gap in the otherwise incessant stream of talk, but the stillness when a mind debates a great proposal. Perhaps for just one moment, there was something down in the ring of important men that meant something to the larger ring of unimportant men, women, and children above. Something that had overtaken their daily musings and gossips, stories of dragon riders and dragons who let children play on their backs. Tales of terrorizing dragon armies halted by the likes of a boy. There were these stories, and then there were the others. Those that told of trespassing thieves on dragon's wings. Ruffians and conquerers who had to be stopped at all costs, for the sake of peace across the Viking lands.

Hiccup felt himself intake a lungful of air, as if just now his head had emerged through a wave's crest and salty water still clung in the throat. It was a miracle that he was still standing, sane and articulate and unafraid in the midst of the chieftain circle. He relaxed and let the adrenaline shoot through his limbs, the instincts of flight and fight harmlessly pouring out of his fingers and toes as he willed his gentle body to stay still and await the judgment.

"So he really did ride a Night Fury," somebody whispered, awe and wonder in that voice. Hiccup looked and saw his own attendant, the youthful, fur-coated boy who had shown Hiccup to his seat and now stood in the shadows behind the chiefs. A sparkle in the youth's eyes as they made eye contact. What Hiccup would have given to be that boy again, to be once more free.

The clear, warm voice of Hagen the Red filled the Great Hall, seemingly bringing the meeting to an end and pronouncing sentence all in one breath. He rose like a living mountain jangling with rubies and dragon teeth. His gaze ignored Hiccup as he addressed the audience.

"Tonight we have joined together as one from many. We have heard many viewpoints this evening under the hallowed banners of our ancestors, and we honor them and the gods with our reason, our devotion, and our swords. Every judgment passed today is of the people -- and today, the people have examined Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, chief of New Berk and defender of dragons. He has highlighted a truth we all know, that the dragons are disappearing, and we have no idea what is behind this troubling fact."

Hagen paused as the audience above him rippled with opinion, yet stayed their thoughts in respect and expectation.

The great chief finally looked at Hiccup, a strange smile on his lips, full of warmth and strength. Continuing, he said: "Hiccup has also admitted that he is responsible for invading the boundaries of tribes throughout the archipelago for the express purpose of freeing dragons and taking what does not belong to him. He has admitted to starting a war with the people of Minkelsk in defense of these dragons that he clearly loves. And who can blame the young chief--" Hagen opened his palms and flexed his shoulders back in a supreme pose of release, as if clarity of decision was the easiest thing in the world for him. "He is still a youth, and he believes that he can right the world of its wrongs. But he will learn that his actions carry consequences for himself and his tribe."

The world grew quiet as Hagen stared back into Hiccup with eyes of his own so clear, warm, and intent as to be almost toxic.

"I have a proposal for you, Hiccup. Agree to it and perform it to completion, and your tribe will go unpunished for its wars and dragon thefts. Your chieftainship will remain intact and even your possession of Minkelsk will gain the official approval of this gathering."

Hagen casually motioned a hand of dismissal at Chief Barmek's unpleasant emotions of surprise. Barmek may have had the bellicosity of a famished Gronckle, but he was wise enough to keep his mouth shut when the chief of Skreva spoke in judgment. No one came to arrest Hiccup nor take away his friends waiting for him in the audience, yet the imagined sound of soldiers rung in his ears and the cold touch of chains lingered on his wrists. Hiccup felt the world closing in, small and thick and choking, as the last words of Hagen the Red echoed in the Great Hall:

"But if you do not agree nor fully complete my proposal, then your tribe will be subjugated by a coalition Viking army, your chieftainship will be stripped from you, and your highest-ranking warriors will be executed. As for the dragons -- we will decide their fate, together with yours."


	3. The King at the End of the World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: The story of love and fierce friendship between Hiccup and Toothless remains the most powerful story in my life. This is my imagined tribute to that friendship after the events of HTTYD3 as both learn to live and love far from one another.

A sailor squinting hard enough into the pink sunlight would have imagined that a gnat flew close to his eye or that an eagle soared somewhere beyond the arc of mist that rose above the thundering ocean. Either way, the spidery shape was dark and fleeting in the shifting clouds of the morning. No matter what a sailor would have guessed, he would have been wrong. For such a phenomenon had not been seen by the eyes of Vikings in a very long time. Those rare few who glimpsed it above their heads were often the unlucky ones - those whose husbands and wives told stories to their children, of the warriors who fell off the edge of the world.

This was the ancestral home of the dragon. Presiding high in the heavens above it was its king and protector, the Alpha of all dragons. This dragon was never meant to be the Alpha species, and yet, here he was. His wings sliced the dawn into twirling vortices, his black body shooting through prisms of color and his sleek head surfacing above his own self-created turbulence in the sky's expanse. His eyes reflected the softness of spring foliage and the vivacity of a human child. The nubby extensions of his ears vibrated in the high-altitude breeze, and from within his throat rumbled the deepest, clearest call across the ocean. If you had flown just a few feet from him, the loudness of his voice might have struck you deaf for a time. But there was no malice, only clear purpose, in the call of the Night Fury. His message traveled across the surface of the ocean, reflecting farther and farther along its waves until the world rung with its echo. It was a call that the dragon world had not heard in perhaps a thousand years - the call to come home.

Every day, the Alpha would venture further. Under the moon of midnight and the veil of thunderstorms, he would go and cry to the dragons of the cliffsides, of the forests, of the sandy bottoms, of the open sea. Every dragon in the world was meant to come home. And so many heeded his call - hundreds upon hundreds of dragons, dragons whose species were so rare, remote and specialized that even he had not encountered their kind in his lifetime until now. And yet, they listened and believed in him. It somehow felt the most natural thing to the Night Fury, to have all other dragons respect and follow him as their leader. He was possessed of a mission that went beyond his natural station in life or even his own ambition. It was almost a primal need. Every dragon saved made his heart hover dangerously with joy. Every dragon who listened to him would find safety and a true home, just as he had found. And the need inside him grew stronger, more earnest, and painful.

Today, he had called a band of Timberjacks from the highest peaks of an island that he had never before visited. One of the dragons struggled to keep up at the same altitude as the rest, and the others had a mind to leave her behind. But the Night Fury slowed down and stayed with her. They flew alongside each other across the ocean, now so far down as to be just a shining surface without blemish. Even though the female Timberjack pumped her wings powerfully, she was missing a slice of her right wing. _Hurt by human hunters_, she hummed to him. She may have survived, but she would never fly the same again. Yet she mourned more for her three young babies. Large-eyed, rambunctious, sweet, and almost ready to fly. They were taken away from her. His purr was gentle and calming. He assured her that no harm would ever come to her, now that she flew under his protection. He told her that she was safe now and that he would help her. By the rising to the setting of the sun, he would search the world and find her children.

Then his rumbles grew more inquisitive and excited, as if expectant that a positive answer would soon be his any day. He asked if she had ever met a certain human before, who was skinny and had a leg made out of stone. This human was the friend of many dragons and …. was the dearest friend to himself. His pupils swelled roundly as he hummed his name, in a language that other dragons didn't really understand, but he himself had known from years of close and intimate contact. He had learned the name before he had even liked this human, before he had begun to ride upon his back and helped him from an injury that would have left him flightless and dead. That name had been his closest companion, his unexpected champion, his buddy in adventures that no dragon had ever undertaken. He had seen the world with this human, and had lived with his family and fought with his friends. He had curled up on cold nights underneath the roof of this human's house, and slept with him and protected him underneath his strong wings. This human had fought alongside him for the liberation of dragons. This human had helped so many dragons throughout the world to be happy and free. Surely the Timberjack must have met this Hiccup.

But she had not. She hadn't even heard of him. Her biggest concern was keeping up with the other Timberjacks and making it safely to the hidden world of dragons. A lone, strange human was of no concern to her. Toothless, the Night Fury, wrinkled his nose in disappointment. He was calling dragons from all corners of the ocean, from every island that he could reach, so why hadn't he heard news of his friend?

Concern flickered momentarily through the Night Fury's mind, and then just as quickly, was replaced with an easy tranquility. The last image of his boy was a smile on a cliffside, and an assurance that everything will be alright. For the truth was, this mission to bring dragons home wasn't Toothless's idea. It was Hiccup's. Every night for the past year, besides the fireside in the home on Berk, Hiccup had said that he was looking for the home of all dragons. Though Toothless hadn't understood everything of Hiccup's plans back then, this he had come to know. Hiccup had tasked him with bringing the dragons to a permanent and lasting safety. Toothless had discovered just what Hiccup had meant - a world of endless vistas and a place that felt as eerily familiar as the warm curl of an egg. Toothless had never been to the hidden world, and yet … he knew it was home. He couldn't explain it, but it was wonderful, necessary, destined. In short, he needed it. And he had someone whom he loved waiting for him back in the hidden world. She encouraged him to become the best Alpha that dragons had ever known. It was a challenge to be sure, as he tried to govern his new home and summon as many dragons to safety from faraway shores. He had barely slept in this constant state of excitement. Surely, everything will be okay.

An arrow whistled through the air just in the moment when the king of dragons felt most at peace. He snarled out of panic just as much as aggression. Contemplation may have been a fine hobby for humans, but it was dangerous for a dragon. His senses screamed back with alert as he spied many ships beneath them, their images broken by the low cloud layer that separated Viking from dragon. They had not seen him; it was the Timberjack female that the arrow was meant for. Fortuitously for her, her senses had not been dulled like the Night Fury's from years of safety within the human household; no, she knew humans were cruel and she reacted as such.

She unleashed flaming ignitions of gas upon the mast of the ship below. Toothless barked savagely. _Don't kill humans! _The Timberjacks growled and snapped their jaws, whiffs of flame curling from the corners of their mouths. Their flight path wobbled between the urge to attack and the strange command of their Alpha. The Night Fury roared. He ordered them to the dark belly of the mid-level cloud bank, while he took a lower path closer to sea level. The sun had begun to evaporate the mists of early morning, yet fragments of fog still hovered across the surface of the waters. The Night Fury swept through fibrous patches like a ghost, his sight keen and sharp. His wingtips brushed the water's surface, stinging the edge of his awareness. He could see all objects in front of him and hear all those behind. Even the clouds were not blinders to him. The low, growing rumble splattering up from the ocean made it clear that he was approaching the mouth of the dragon world, within several hundred wingbeats of distance. Under no circumstances would he let those ships find his home.

A ball of acetylene plasma gathered inside his throat, the gasses thrumming and wheezing out the sides of parted jaws. He was coming fast upon the closest ship, its gray mast punching out of the mists like a lopsided sea stack. No one would get hurt if a ship lost its mast. But a ship without a mast wouldn't get very far.

Out of the corner of his eye, another figure sailed through the sky, inseparable from the milky white elegance of the heavens. Invisible yet unmistakable in the music of her wings. Instantly his heart rose with invitation. His ears strained to hear what she was saying from that far a distance. The Light Fury was rapidly approaching his position with an intensity that he had rarely ever witnessed from her. And before he knew it, she too gathered potent gasses inside her throat.

It was unlikely if any sailor onboard those ships knew what was coming. The sound preceded sight, as a rushing, rising crescendo of energy swooped through the fog a split second before the twin fireballs incinerated the mast of the leading ship. The mist glowed with the screams of boys. Toothless tilted out of the way of the white-hot fire cloud bursting into the skies at rapid velocity. His eyes failed to glimpse what was happening on the fiery deck below, obscured by the smoke of his turbulence. The cadence of the screams spelt both pain and terror, and the pitch told of youthful ages, teenagers like Fishlegs and Ruffnut had once been. Warriors were not supposed to be children, pressed into the service of their elders and left on the silent ocean to die of their wounds. But the screams and the flashing fire balls continued to come, one, two, three, and four ahead, punctuating the clearing fog of the ocean's horizon. His invisible mate tore through the ranks of the ships, never an ounce of fear nor mercy. She swept through, doubled back, raced skyward as arrows tried to meet her altitude. Toothless burst the fleeing shafts into flame. He pumped the wind defiantly to reach her side as she raced along the outer edge of the armada. He called to her. _They are leaving. You can stop now._

She snapped her jaws and lifted into the sky. The two swift dragons, white and black, rose through the billows and pierced the top of the clouds, leaving fear and fire and death far behind. It was bright and innocent above the world, especially in the feeling of clean cold air purifying every suffering part of your body. The two Furies were the masters of this feeling, the ancestral expression of emotion and movement fusing as one. She glided above him, as the aura, and he hurtled below, the shadow. When she arced, he arced, he spun when she spun. They owned the sky together above the thunder of the waterfalls at the edge of the world. This was home. The mists parted in the distance, as the Timberjacks came back into sight, flying steadily towards the dragon homeworld. The female who had lost so much happily murmured in the contentment of safety at last. The cries of dragons rose from the cavernous pit of the earth, the sea unfurling the deepest of its secrets. As the Timberjacks clacked joyously and descended into its warm embrace, the Night Fury and his mate circled above the division between air and water.

She hummed with concern. Only then did he realize that an arrow punctured through the membrane of his right wing, just below the wrist joint, the shaft still fluttering in the breeze. He hadn't even felt it. He said it was nothing, but she wouldn't have it. She cooed in her rippling voice. _You believe you are invincible._ Their wings overlapped, their paths dangerously close to one another in the recklessness of their ever-decreasing orbit. _You care so much for your humans. But there are things more important. It's not just us anymore._

He wanted to object, to tell her that what happened with the ships wasn't right. That she was wrong about the human world. But there was a reason for the flushness of her features and the energy of her attack. He noticed finally the subtle swelling of her abdomen and that scent of hers so unusually sweet and vigorous. It drove him into the memories of the tropical islands, the vast flocks of dragons from every wind of the earth joined together as one. There were so many babies sleeping in the nests and clumsily crawling after their mothers among the mud ponds. There were proud, protective fathers watching over their younglings as they performed their first flights. These were the days of his youth, the days long ago when dragons were happy and he was alone, none to call father or mother or sibling. He yearned to belong among those happy families. Perhaps for once not to be alone.

Right then, he realized that he would never suffer that feeling again, because the love of his life was bearing their child.


	4. Soldier for Hire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: The story of love and fierce friendship between Hiccup and Toothless remains the most powerful story in my life. This is my imagined tribute to that friendship after the events of HTTYD3 as both learn to live and love far from one another.

The chief of Berk stood alone on the edge of the deck, the violent spray of the waves soaking into his skin. To the north and east rose another large swell, an unnamed number in the endless undulations of the angry sea, and to the south and west descended only darkness along the horizon, an ominous shadow only mitigated by a flicker of lightning. The rain slanted from the south, from the direction of the ship's forward travel, such that it blasted into the eyes and matted the hair with layers of stinging, half-frozen water. Sheets of thin ice began to crust the railing and floorboards. His cheeks felt raw and filmed with the ice, and his fingers curled deeper inside his soaked fur coat without finding a breath of warmth. The Skrevan vessel may have been the flagship of the chief himself, a far larger and grander craft than ever had been constructed at Berk, yet not even its technology could compete with the unrelenting power of nature.

Throughout the journey, standing for hours along the starboard each day, Hiccup thought that he occasionally glimpsed sight of a dragon. It would always seem to be on the farthest edge of the horizon, a movement, a shape, a discrepancy between the roiled ocean and the violent atmosphere. Whatever it could be, it must have been very shy near ships, a creature that favored the most brutal storms, or a species he had never known before. More likely, it was the result of a sleep-deprived mind yearning for deliverance in his own imagination.

It was easier making up a dragon in his head than dealing with his new reality. Three days ago, he had told Snotlout to become leader of New Berk and Minkelsk. Even Snotlout, for all his eager ambition, seemed genuinely surprised and worried over the new promotion. Its chances of becoming a permanent position were far greater than both wanted to admit. Hiccup had entrusted his cousin with the complete safety of every Berkian and a way to find a lasting peace with the people of Minkelsk. In the event that Hiccup would not return within a month, Snotlout was instructed to take the tribe and leave the island of New Berk for good. "Flee to the north," was the last thing Hiccup spoke to Snotlout, before the Skrevan soldiers escorted Hiccup and half of his warriors to the awaiting armada.

Hagen the Red was shrewd in his selection among Hiccup's troops and top fighters. He had at first conversed at length with them and mingled among the people of Berk. Needless to say, there was great uneasiness among his friends and in the eyes of ordinary citizens, but Hiccup made sure to walk beside Hagen at all times, the two chiefs moving among the people as if they had been allies forever and were just discussing the terms of treaty renewal. Little children gazed in wonderment at the massive figure of the large, brightly-bedecked man and felt comfort in the presence of Hiccup's welcoming friendliness to these strange Vikings. Older men and women listened in earnest at Hagen's suggestion of initiating stronger trading links between their peoples. Even Gothi nodded approvingly upon her acquaintance with the Skrevan chief, who extolled all the old stories of her miraculous ointments and cures that had benefited Vikings in his home islands. Hiccup smiled and nodded his head. He did not tell his people of the choice he had made at the Viking council. Hagen never mentioned his judgment at the council, either, nor the fact that Hiccup was held hostage in every decision he made. After sufficiently socializing with the Berkians and Hiccup's friends in particular, Hagen had requested the warriors that Hiccup would take with him for the expedition. The two men were alone in the former Minkelsk chief's home, and as Hagen began to list off the names of Berkians who would go and who would stay, it was clear that family ties were being subtly undermined: Snotlout stayed, Spitelout went, Tuffnut stayed, Ruffnut went, Phlegma stayed, Astrid went, etc. Valka, Gobber, and Eret of course had to be left behind. Warrior wives were divided from husbands, parents from children, and siblings from each other. Even in allowing Astrid to join in Hiccup's assignment, Hagen appointed her a top fighter among the troops of Chief Njall, that same austere and dignified chief who expressed offense at Hiccup's so-called overtures to archipelago-wide warfare. "You're dividing us," Hiccup told Hagen point-blank, and the other chief appeared to think a moment, gazing thoughtfully into the mantelpiece by the fire, before replying, "In your own wisdom to create a successful force out of new allies and enemies, you would do the same."

Alone on Hagen the Red's ship, Hiccup found himself a chief without a people and forced to become a soldier himself in the battalion of a foreign ruler whose moral sense was questionable at best. All for a mission that he knew next to nothing about. Of course he would be informed of the details "upon the successful landing," for all the good that would do him. His friends who hadn't been left on New Berk were scattered among the crews of two dozen ships, half-hidden in the blinding sleet of the storm, and there was nothing that he could do. He only knew that this multi-tribal army was very eager to use his particular services, and that dragons had something to do with it.

He squinted hard into the weak light of the sun, barely streaking through patches of wind-tormented clouds. His mind returned back to one uncomfortable truth, over and over again.

Suddenly, a voice behind him made his thoughts audible: "We are too far south." The accent was strange and the language broken, but the voice clear and direct. Hiccup turned his head and saw a red-headed woman coming to lean on the railing beside him. Her hair curled in the most copper shades of red Hiccup had ever seen, and the many complex leather details of her shirt were partly hid in the thick fur coat draped over her shoulders. She tossed her head in the wind, presumably feeling the bite of that same ice that striated in numbing layers across Hiccup's face.

"I know," he replied to her, as her elbows anchored along the railing and her face gazed askance at him. At this angle in the gale, her hair streamed across her face downwind, the curls distracting and bright like the quirky red spines of a Monstrous Nightmare. "If we continue on course, we'll leave the Viking archipelagos completely," he finished, almost relieved to say it. He watched her purse her lips and turn her gaze away from his towards the expanse of the ocean. "Then I will see home again," she said simply, that fragrant foreign lilt in her voice more noticeable now. Without looking at him, she changed the subject: "I saw you in the Hall. You are a priest to the people."

Hiccup felt incredulous. "I -- I'm not a priest," he said, not sure what that was supposed to mean. "I was just trying to make things better," he trailed off, fresh frustration resurfacing inside him. "But every time I open my mouth, things go from bad to worse. I wish that no one had to suffer for my own mistakes."

"You have a conscience," she continued, unperturbed, as if not even listening to what he was saying. "The priests of old talked about repentance and the blood of the cross. They reminded people what they had forgotten. My priest was kind." The last words were spoken with a viciousness that took Hiccup aback. The woman stood up all of a sudden, and stepped back from him and the railing, wind driving against the folds of her coat, her hair like wildfire. "When you find the priests, have mercy in their deaths," she snapped, a heaving anger welling deep inside her. Yet incredibly, the fury vanished a second later, as calm pervaded her whole being. She stood straight and stated formally, "Chief Hiccup, the Chief of Skreva would like to speak with you in his chambers. I will escort you."

Wordlessly Hiccup followed her below deck, his mind churning with disturbed speculation. He barely noticed the relief spreading over his body as the wind slackened inside the damp, cool hull. He did register the unusual sight of that boy attendant of his, from the Great Hall in Skreva, this time wearing drab monotone brown clothes and entering one of the doorways within the bowels of the ship. His eyes held a fright that distressed Hiccup ever so vaguely. But Hiccup's mind was alive for once on this journey, and he wanted to face Hagen now more than ever.

She seemed to notice his agitation. "I wouldn't talk with Chief Barmek if I were you. Nice boys must look out for themselves on the high seas."

The woman opened the last door in the hallway. Her manner had completely transformed. "Hagen," she stated pleasantly, her accent inflecting the name on the second syllable. "Hiccup is here to see you." As Hiccup entered into the fairly large, candle-lit room outfitted with a simple table, several chairs, and a bed, she left them both and closed the door behind her.

Hagen the Red stood against the opposite wall in the room, next to a lone painting of a snow-covered landscape of a small Viking town nestled in the walls of a narrow, blood-red fjord. It felt like the only fresh air in the claustrophobia of the cabin. Hagen was without the robes of several nights ago but instead was outfitted with a sturdy fur cape dyed a deep wine, with myriad belts of leather crossing his chest. A large sword was strapped to his hip and a dagger fastened along his left arm. He smiled warmly as Hiccup entered, and motioned him to take a nearby seat, which Hiccup refused to do.

"You've met Esmee, I see. My wife. She's a very passionate, bright woman. She is also one of my best warriors in battle," he spoke of her, pausing, until he decided to seat himself on the opposite chair from which Hiccup stood a dozen feet away. Looking up, his eyes traced over Hiccup's features curiously. "You're frosted over like a poor flower," he said, concern and amusement mingling on his lips.

But Hiccup wasn't shaking from the cold. "Esmee is Gallic." He breathed sharply before the next sentence. "So you must have took her during a raid and … married her?"

Suddenly, inexplicably, Hagen the Red laughed. It was almost perverse, the juxtaposition of so much loud, freeing merriness in the midst of the bone-freezing cold and the dankness of the dark, somber room with its single, snowy painting. Hiccup felt speechless, almost dumb standing there in his self-righteousness as this man coughed himself back to a calmer, saner aspect. He looked Hiccup directly in the eye, while remaining relaxed and even forgiving. "You have much to learn about what it means to be a Viking. Your father should have told you about the old stories and the source of his wealth. A Viking lives by the sea and by the fruits of warfare. It's as natural as the sea lions who attack schools of fish, or of dragons who destroy towns to gain the livestock for their own nests." Hagen eased into the back of his chair.

Hiccup's legs ached from hours standing in the freezing wind, yet he refused to sit down. "Stoick never raided any towns, Viking or not," he corrected. "Berk's extreme northern location had made journeys that distant an impracticality for our daily lives, I suppose. We had enough to handle with dragons."

Why was he trying to find excuses for his tribe's behavior? He knew what Vikings did in other islands and had heard the stories, but those people and their wars felt so far away. They had never impacted his daily life. He never had felt proud of it, but it hadn't ever bothered him that much, either. The Viking mistreatment of dragons was what had always weighed more heavily on his mind all these years.

"So this mission I'm on … it's a raid on Gaul," Hiccup finished, his heart sinking farther than he ever thought possible.

The depth of his woe must have been obvious enough. Hagen softened his voice, peering up into Hiccup's eyes. "I couldn't guarantee your approval. Your reputation for mercy on the downtrodden is quite admirable, even if unrealistic. I can appreciate your beliefs. And I apologize that it had to be this way. I treated you roughly, Hiccup, even if I do respect you as a leader in your own way."

Hiccup smirked. "So I'm not a terrorist then?" Hagen grinned. "Some people are touchy when others take their stuff, whether or not they really own it in the first place."

"So you think that dragons shouldn't be traded then?" The whole commercial enterprise of which Skreva was smack in the middle of included extensive dragon trafficking. It was extremely unlikely that the Skreva chief would have reservations on something so close to the livelihood of his own people and allies. "Well, I wouldn't go that far," Hagen wisely replied. Hiccup wondered just how far he was willing to go in this conversation.

"I'm willing to make some concessions when it comes to how dragons are treated in the marketplace," Hagen proposed, and almost immediately seemed to rethink his statement as Hiccup eyed him skeptically. "You must really want my cooperation," Hiccup ventured, this time reining in his own affinity to sarcasm. Hagen began to open up about the details of the expedition. "For years our warriors have encountered a problem along the Caletl coastline. There sometimes appears a very large dragon, who visits the small coastal towns, whom none of the inhabitants have ever mollified, even with their attempts of sacrifices for its satiation. This dragon consumes the sheep, goats, cattle, men, women, and even metal and gold of its province, without end of appetite. Over the most recent years, it began to come to this prosperous region every year, sometimes during both the spring and autumn festivals. Several times, my armies and those of my allies have fought with this dragon. The results are disastrous bloodshed. I fear now that this dragon will spread to other areas of Gaul and ruin everything in its path."

"So you are interested in justice." This time the thick drip of irony couldn't hide itself in Hiccup's voice. Hagen's stance hardened, and he replied cooly, "It's not only justice. I'm also interested in the welfare and prosperity of my own people. If the people of Gaul cannot control their own dragon, then I will find someone who can. That is you."

Hiccup had to turn away and shake his head. He paced on the dank wooden floorboards, unable any longer to hide his loathing. "And the payment for my cooperation is the safety of my tribe and friends," he concluded, emphasizing the hopeless anger in his voice. "You've been very smart in this deal. It seems I don't have any alternatives." He stopped pacing, and finally sat down opposite Hagen in the glow of the candlelight. He let himself sigh, expressing the truth of his exhaustion for the other's benefit. "What do you expect from me and my friends?" Hiccup asked, straightening in the very real comfort of the seat and his own clearing mind.

Hagen seemed slightly taken aback by how quickly Hiccup had conceded. He could see the clockwork working in Hagen's mind, as the other attempted to discover if he had misjudged the fledgling chief of Berk. Hagen appeared to choose carefully his next couple words. "Once we land on the shores of Caletl, you'll be reunited with as many of your men as you deem necessary to win in your confrontation with the dragon. I will send my best men with you also, who have experience with the beast and can assist you in whatever plan you execute. They have already studied its travels through the countryside, and should be able to find it for us. Once you do find it, I am not too particular how you deal with it. I've heard that you prefer to settle human-dragon conflict peaceably and optimally with the dragon still alive. You may uphold that high standard if you wish, but in this instance it may take bloodier methods to solve this problem. That's one thing I want to make very clear. One way or another, I want that dragon eliminated as a problem for my soldiers. If you find a lethal method to solve it," Hagen leaned over, elbows on his knees, the candlelight dancing on his face, "then by all means, choose it."

Hiccup released his breath, not having realized that he held it for almost the whole time Hagen spoke. "You have a lot of faith in my abilities," he observed. Hagen pursed his lips. "Don't you?" Without waiting for an answer to that rhetorical question, Hagen asked, "Would you also regularly report with me on your progress in solving the problem? I need sessions with you every day on your ideas so that I can prepare my men and any necessary equipment." Hagen definitely was pushing it. However, Hiccup could see the strategy in it all. Divert and occupy his mind fully enough in finding ways to "solve the problem" all the while helping his tribe to survive, and maybe Hiccup wouldn't seriously bother planning alternatives like insurrection, sabotage, assassination, or escape. Give him just enough hope, but not too much.

Hiccup kept silent a little while longer, before finally probing, "And what if I do tame this dragon -- what happens then with my warriors and my people?" Hagen finally sat back, a loose composure once again pervading his features. He gazed at Hiccup directly, without malice nor emotion one way or the other. "The soldiers you've brought with you, will then fight beside you as all Vikings do. Together, our forces will take several towns along the coast until we have satisfied our cargo holds with every supply that we came here to find in the first place. Since all my men and the men of my allies will risk life and limb in this venture, and will share equally in the spoils, I expect nothing less from you and your own. You will benefit from the great wealth and return home a rich man and honored chief. Your tribe will join the council of tribes in a formal treaty recognizing their equality and respecting their sovereignty."

There it was. No matter the outcome, his task would be to torch the homes of strangers and slaughter unarmed people, stealing their possessions and razing whatever else of value was in sight. The vague, abstract notions of a raid, the staple of the Viking economy and the origin of so much valor and history -- was becoming far too real, too horrifying, to contemplate. Even if Hagen had allowed differently, and Hiccup and his gang never had to do the dirty work, it would still amount to the same. Assisting Hagen's army was the same as committing the acts themselves.

Hiccup abruptly rose and straightened himself, his voice taking on a formal yet friendly tone. "You've given me much to think about. Thank you for your patience. Since I'm quite tired tonight, I'd like to talk with you more about the dragon tomorrow. Its abilities, behavior, migration patterns, strengths and weaknesses. I'll need to know everything."

"Of course," Hagen rose as Hiccup started for the door. Just as he reached it, he paused, and glanced back at the man outlined in dimming light. "In your judgment at the council, you mentioned execution of my best warriors as one of the punishments if I do not cooperate. Wouldn't it have been more just to order _my_ execution in that case? A soldier only follows orders, but it's the chief who is responsible for the morality of the command."

Though the light had grown far too faint to distinguish all that the Skrevan chief's face said in that moment, there was something of a small smile. "You are correct, Hiccup, except in the case of yourself. A man who is willing to let go of a dragon in midair so that his Night Fury will be saved is also a man whose life means far less to him than those lives he considers important."


	5. Night Terrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: The story of love and fierce friendship between Hiccup and Toothless remains the most powerful story in my life. This is my imagined tribute to that friendship after the events of HTTYD3 as both learn to live and love far from one another.

Hiccup returned freely to his room, without a guard escorting him or checking on his whereabouts. He even requested a change of clothing from a servant boy carrying fresh linens, since his own clothes were fully soaked and would never allow him to sleep. He needed every faculty at his disposal, most of all the health of his body, working at optimal levels in order for him to crawl his way out of this nightmare. If that were even possible.

He lay motionless on his back, for once warmer than he'd felt in days. The bed was nice enough, and though his cabin was small and pitch-black with the candles blown out, he felt a strange calm staring into its endless void. It was a night without stars. When surroundings grow that dark, your eyes start to play tricks on you. Depth becomes infinite and it seems that your eye will never grow tired of peering farther into it with the assurance that there is nothing to block its view. The eye, however, does strain at the playful, translucent liquids that begin to wander and flicker in the void. They are hallucinatory, of course, but the longer you look, the more enthralled and exhausted your vision becomes. Perhaps finally, this is why you sleep, to find relief from the creatures in the dark.

Hiccup had a theory why it was so exhausting to look at those false images. The culprit was the physical and mental act of focusing. The eye's muscles, or whatever ligaments it possessed that make it see and comprehend, must grow tired at trying to catch something that did not exist. In a similar way, so to the muscles of his mind were growing positively fatigued over his constant ruminations upon the same set of paradoxes. The magical solution would save the lives of his tribe, friends, dragons, and himself, and find a way to thwart the moral catastrophe that would arrive imminently on the Gallic shore. Corollaries to that magical solution included performing it in such a way that his betrayal of the raid wouldn't set off all the Viking world after Berk in a vendetta that he wasn't sure they could ever outrun. After all those variables were exhausted, there were to consider his missions to save the rest of caged and enslaved dragonkind, a hugely unpopular measure that he couldn't ever see the Viking world tolerating from Berk anymore. Chances at arriving at this magical solution were so close to nil that, repeatedly, throughout the night, painful waves of a headache coursed through his brain at the depths of his despair.

At one point, he smirked ironically. Hagen was right; at least he could scratch himself off the list of required magical outcomes. Dying was the least of his problems, except insofar as it impeded his other goals. And he had the unhappy feeling that his presence would be required for most of them. No heroic suicides then. Nor accidental deaths on the battlefield or at sea. One thing his instincts pointed to was the absolute necessity of his friends in contact once more. With all of them scattered among so many enemies, there was no hope of a coherent plan. Hagen, if he could be trusted (which was debatable as well), had promised them back to him when the army reached the shore. That meant his time to scheme was now, while still en route to Caletl while he still had freedom of movement. Hagen will try distracting him of course.

His mind wandered to the laughing image of the man, a man who couldn't conceive of a Viking abhorring the raiding tradition. At first the image produced revulsion in the pit of his stomach, reaction to the worst kind of violence acted by powerful men to get what they wanted. And then his thoughts drifted to his own nearly non-existent attitudes toward the practice all those years he lived on Berk. Somehow, this same nagging idea kept returning to him, and pressing on him, like the missing piece in a chain that he desperately didn't want to complete. Vikings in all ages, in almost all places, considered raiding foreign shores an acceptable practice, even a necessity for their livelihoods. Sure, he hadn't grown up with the tradition personally, which explains his own revulsion, but that didn't mean it was so horrible for those who grew up with it. If he wanted all raiding to end, then why not all wars for any reason? Yes of course he believed, deep in his soul, that war and violence against innocents were very wrong. But war continued upon the face of the earth, and he couldn't stake the life of his tribe on the same scales as preventing all wars from ever happening again. Sacrificing for an impossible task wasn't a right action at all. A person had only so much power and responsibility, even with staying true to his own convictions.

Perhaps, when it came right down to it, the only reason he abhorred Hagen's deal was his own personal conviction. Take that out of the equation, follow through with the deal, then his friends and tribe survive, he can protect them as their chief, and his ability to negotiate for better treatment of dragons becomes far more likely. Hagen may have been manipulative to his core, but he seemed somewhat fair and moderate in his dealings. After all, in Hiccup's trial at the council, the chief could have easily pronounced deadly sentence on him and his people then and there. From Hagen's point of view, this was a reasonable second chance for a blundering young leader.

Then Hiccup's heart stopped. The painful delirium of his half-dreaming, half-frantic mind crystalized into a waking state. It wasn't even a thought, but a pure feeling. If translated into a more coherent, logical form, it ran like this: If raiding villages is respected Viking tradition, then so was killing dragons. That should never stop him from fighting both. How could he be so stupid? Anything less ….

In that clear moment as sleep drained from his body, Hiccup heard a muffled sound nearby. It startled him, because before, all the sounds belonged to his own thoughts. It came loud, unnatural, and close. But it was actually beyond his door, not inside his room at all. In the deserted hours of the night, someone was crying and trying to mute the noise.

Stiffly, Hiccup slipped off his blanket, tiptoed as quietly to the door as can be expected of a metal foot, and knocked. "Hello there," he quickly added, "It's alright."

The crying stopped. Immediately, Hiccup opened the door. A thin, frightened shape was there, and suddenly tried to get away, but Hiccup was too fast for it. He reached out with both arms and hugged the figure, which squirmed against his flesh. Whoever it was, even tried hard to muffle her or his own gasps of surprise, with something -- a hand or cloth. No, it was a hand. Hiccup felt the fingers covering the mouth of the shaking face. It was a boy -- it must have been. "I won't hurt you," Hiccup fiercely whispered, "please tell me why you're crying. I can help."

The sound of Hiccup's voice was transformative. The back of the boy's head, which was all Hiccup could see, visibly drooped as his body slackened its struggle. "Chief Hiccup?" asked the boy. Silently, gently, Hiccup guided the boy into his room, but he didn't yet shut the door. The low yellow lights of the torches in the hallway still burned enough to make eyes useful again, and what Hiccup saw astonished him.

The boy -- a young teen really -- stood apart from Hiccup, shaking, with eyes wide, sleep-deprived, and terrified. This was the same boy, those same frightened eyes, whom he passed by earlier in the evening, and the same who accompanied him in the Skrevan council. But instead of a lavish fur coat or deteriorating rags, there was no shirt at all on his body, and only short thin pants on a cold night like this. Far worse were the dark bruises beginning to color his pasty skin. Several bite marks blemished his shoulders and chest, and purple discolorations moved in patches along his ribs down to his stomach. Hiccup caught his breath. Some of the patches were partly obscured by the pants, which meant there were more injuries farther down. Anger, and fear, welled up inside Hiccup. He closed the door carefully, and in the privacy of darkness, slipped off his own shirt and pulled it over the boy. The brutal rhythm of his shivers infected Hiccup's own body, too, and they began to shake together. "What's your name?" he tried to make his voice friendly after so many tense, lonely hours stuck in his own mind. Hiccup said more. "I remember you at the council. You helped me."

At this small acknowledgement, the boy burst into tears again. This time, he clung in a tight hug around Hiccup's middle, his arms enfolding around Hiccup's own to the small of his back. Hiccup didn't mind being imprisoned in this gentle, strange way, and felt a stealthy comfort in it. He let the youth cry for a while, remaining quiet, as both stood in the darkness. The same eternity of time and distance seemed to overtake them both, until the boy said, "Bain."

"That's my name," he said quietly, far more stable in his emotions now than before. "I remember you, too. You were nice."

"Can you tell me what happened?" Hiccup asked. Sleep was finally crawling back into his brain and fogging his mind, but the intensity of horror in finding the boy's condition lurched in his stomach. "Are they still after you?"

"No, he's sleeping," Bain said, and clung closer. "And … please don't get help. Don't leave me. Tell no one I was here." The clear-eyed desperation in that voice was heartbreaking.

"Why did he hurt you?" Hiccup ventured, but now Bain grew quiet and remained planted where he was. "Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?" was all Hiccup could think to ask, without prying into questions that Bain wasn't ready to answer. Whomever it was who had done this, he was still on this ship, and Bain had every reason not to reveal his identity. Hiccup would not press it, not yet, not when both of them needed rest and sleep. As a final bright idea, Hiccup suggested, "Why don't you stay with me tonight. I won't tell anyone. We can share the bed and stay warm together. I'll protect you."

"That sounds good," Bain ventured shyly, with genuine surprise in his small, tired voice. Slowly Hiccup felt his way in the dark and helped Bain onto the bed. From the grunts and the stiff movements, Hiccup knew that Bain was deeply hurting. What on earth could have been done to this boy? Who had done it, and for gods' sake -- why? A deeply physical agitation had just been hammered into Hiccup's soul after all the struggles he had endured today. But for once, someone else was suffering more than he was. He couldn't think selfishly. Ever so carefully, Hiccup lay down on the far side of the bed, angling himself very gently next to Bain to keep him warm. He felt both their bodies relax almost instantly.

Outside of any conceivable context for the situation, Bain asked, "Do you have an older brother?"

Hiccup said "no" of course, while Bain paused in silence. The teen murmured, "Too bad. I had one once. They're nice."

Hiccup found the observation ironic. This bruised and frightened boy, who didn't know a thing about him, nevertheless pitied him for not having a brother. Well, that was something to think about. As Hiccup's mind finally let go of the creatures in the darkness, an image of Toothless became clear. Playful, wide-eyed, and fully awake on the rock slab besides Hiccup's bed. The dragon was gurgling something silly, and Hiccup had a mind to call his dad to take the dragon outside for good. Dragons aren't housecats, Stoick had always lamented. Neither Hiccup nor Toothless ever listened. Toothless just wouldn't fall asleep. No matter how much he tried, that dragon just had too much life in him.


	6. All the Seas and Isles

Even the great jeweled bear cape, the throne of a former chief in the Great Hall, and the constant attention of attendants for every need still did not counterbalance the deep ache in Snotlout's stomach. He did a pretty good job of hiding it. By moving his headquarters on Minkelsk from the Hall to the former chieftain's house and answering citizens' questions and objections there, he was much closer to the private rooms if his unwell feelings surfaced. It was hard work expressing his natural chieftain abilities after years of repression, and he couldn't blame himself if a few Berkians harbored doubts on Hiccup's decision to leave him in charge of both islands for the foreseeable future until Hiccup's triumphant return, if there was to be a triumphant return at all.

That's the part that worried Snotlout. No, Hiccup had made the right decision in trusting him, but he was concerned for his smaller, more vulnerable cousin. Hiccup's last message couldn't be good, not at all, since messages like "flee at once" were hardly the stuff conceded by the nauseatingly dreamy boy. Besides, that stuff about fleeing -- it wasn't very Viking-like, now was it? That had to be it -- whatever problems Hiccup was facing, he hadn't quite grown to be a Viking like himself, so maybe that was his way of coping. Now if Snotlout had been at that council and been questioned by those tough chiefs, he would have given them all a black eye to remember him by. Yeah, that's how he would have handled it.

Maybe it was easier imagining what he would have done at Skreva if _he'd_ gone, since dealing with disgruntled citizens of Minkelsk and grumbling Berkians wasn't Snotlout's idea of power. When you became chief, weren't people just supposed to listen to you? You know, carry out your commands, win your battles, that sort of thing. Well, Hiccup had gained all the glory in battle and left Snotlout to sort out the boring stuff afterwards. Pretty selfish of him, if you ask yours truly.

"You haven't even touched your leg of lamb," crooned a sweet motherly voice. Snotlout shifted his chin from its perch on his palm, the juicy, delectable main serving sitting strangely abandoned on Snotlout's plate. Across the table and on either side of him, loads of people sat and ate and laughed, having a most wonderful time. Well that was so impolite after all the trouble he went to giving this feast! Inviting everyone, bringing together both enemies -- and all for nothing after the rotten day he'd had!

"This was a stupid idea," he muttered to Valka as she slid into the seat next to him. "Ah yes," she filled her plate with haddock and tiny, herb-stuffed sardines from the serving plate in front of him. A Minkelsk delicacy, if you asked them. Disgusting stuff, if you asked him.

Strands of gray and brown hair slipped across her eyes, quite comely, as her nimble hands prepared her food and her alert eyes darted across the people surrounding them. She once wore a fearsome dragon mask and walked with a large stick, but now, her garments were simple and practical for the post-dragon life. After so many years away from human contact, it was amazing how quickly she adapted back into society. Right down to properly using fork and knife, at least, far better than Snotlout ever managed. After pleasing herself with a few bites, she faced Snotlout while he still stared blankly across the dinner table. "This party is actually pretty good. You outdid yourself this time."

"Nah," he grunted. On a hunch, he grabbed his mead mug and downed an entire slather of stale alcohol. He thought that it would do something to him, besides make him burp. Stupid mead.

"This may be the first real step to reconciling our two peoples. Get to know each other and start forming connections," she smiled in her confident, easy way, as if she could foresee all the world and its futures if people just took a moment to see each other's viewpoints. She wasn't always like that, Snotlout remembered. She was a crazy old dragon lady, and when Hiccup brought her home, he was actually scared of her. Yeah, that's right. But she'd changed a long way from that. She was pretty magnificent all around, especially back when she rode Cloudjumper and could do all sorts of things with a dragon. And, she fancied him. That was pretty cool. Even now, in Snotlout's hour of need, she was here for him and supporting him after everything that's happened.

A serious repose entered Snotlout's heart, probably one of the most somber feelings that he had ever experienced. Suddenly the idea that he was not in this alone, that all of this wasn't bearing down on his shoulders only, swept into him. A deep feeling of relieved responsibility, even. He had a friend, maybe even a lover, or a queen. He glanced at her and suddenly burped due to some alcoholic bubbles cornered in his throat. Settle for friend, then.

"Valka, there's something that's been … interesting me. A bit of strange Hiccup behavior. Well, he's always weird, that's nothing new. But, I've been thinking about what he told me just before he left with Chief Hagen's army."

"Yes?" her eyes lit up. She drank a mouthful of mead herself, then leaned in closer, eyes intense, and whispered: "I've been thinking about that whole affair too. And I've been waiting for this moment when you'd tell me what secret Hiccup gave you just before he left."

Snotlout's eyes popped wide open. "Mean -- you've known all along?" The admiration in his voice grew fathoms deeper.

Valka grinned bashfully and waved it off. "Oi -- we're like-minded, you and I. So, tell!"

And Snotlout revealed that deepest of secrets. That single sentence that had haunted him ever since Hiccup gazed into his soul and entrusted him with the chieftainship. Ever since this whole bloody thing began and suffocated him with huge responsibilities and paperwork and who-knows-what else!

"That's it?" Valka murmured in disappointment. Her brow furrowed ever deeper, the picture of concern as her finger hovered near her mouth and paused in powerful thought. "No explanation, no plan …. Snotlout, you sure that's all Hiccup told you?"

"On my life, Valka!" Snotlout defended himself in surprise. "I mean, Hiccup sounded so worried, and I thought --"

"Oh yes, I have no doubts whatsoever that Hiccup is warning us of a grave danger, one from which he and half our warriors may never return from. I believe that Hagen's army has something to do with those worries." Her eyes narrowed. "If we don't have specifics, then we have to make do with generalities."

Snotlout was dumbfounded. Valka glanced up at him, realization hitting her, and rephrased: "We must follow Hiccup's order! But let's not wait a month, because knowing Hiccup's optimism, that will be too late. No, the time to evacuate the tribe is now."

"E--evacuate?" The word began to sink in. The bad feeling in his stomach began to make sense. Yes, it was his instincts telling him all this time, the feelings he should have listened to. If Valka hadn't tipped him off, he could have been a patsy suddenly surprised by some horrible villain. Whoever the enemy was, they wouldn't receive any satisfaction from him.

"We must take every child, man, and woman and leave New Berk," Valka was saying. Snotlout took a deep breath. He and Valka stood up from the dinner table, their shared knowledge far from the minds of the partygoers. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and nodded to her. "I will gather everyone to the Great Hall. We will leave tonight. We won't stop until we've gone to the farthest edge of the world!"


	7. An Attempt at the Magical Solution

The Golden Dragon does not possess an ordinary existence. According to legend, it has a body made of pure gold. This extremely elusive and rare creature, whom kings and adventurers have sought for centuries as the embodiment of wealth itself, has also cost the fortunes and blood of all who seek its life. Even from a small age, its neck is as thick as a tree's trunk and its fire hot enough to melt castles to the ground. The large translucent webbing of its humongous wings, when taken from the very rarely found carcasses of an old dragon, is reputed to be so durable that it has been fashioned into the roofs of houses, into the hull walls of ships, and even into the sinews of castle draw bridges. Its skin is entirely resistant to flame or explosion and most forms of piercing through swords, spears, or arrows. When full grown, its height is so colossal as to exceed the stature of several well-known palaces and mountain peaks on the continent, depending on the local's available point of reference. So large are its jaws that it can swallow ten men at once, fully armored. Its migrations through northern Gaul are notoriously difficult to pin down, yet among the towns who make offerings to the dragon a sacred tradition for the last hundred years, it returns with striking precision to the exact location and time when the offering is made, even a few days before it has yet to be given.

This particular individual dragon that Hiccup was tasked with finding had yet one more legend tied to its name: Once, a few years back, it had been slain in a great battle. The carcass was left while the men celebrated in town. The next day, on the very same field where its blood soaked the hillside, the dragon stood alive and unharmed. This dragon had died and lived again.

Ever since the story was told, armies have melted in its attack. Brave men succumb to its supernatural reputation without even an attempt to subdue it. As a result, this individual has grown bold throughout the region of Caletl. It has abandoned its reclusive nature in preference for open warfare and the resulting feasts for its insatiable appetite. All who see it fear for their very lives. It's among this individual's terrorized reign, where many a town's best defense is one of desperation: to choose their best cattle, metal tools, gold, and children to be sacrificed to the dragon.

The more Hiccup read or listened to the reports of the old soldiers, the accounts of crippled daredevils, and the tales of local mothers who had lost their children to the dragon, the more lost he felt. Gathered as guests on Hagen's flagship to share their stories, these people together testified to a kind of dragon he had never, ever dreamed was possible, not in his wildest nightmares. Dragons have always been violent as a manner of surviving, but the intentionality of this dragon to kill at a large scale was unprecedented and unaccounted for. The dragon didn't even feel real. The myth was clouding the story, but he couldn't pry out the truth from the exaggeration. Everyone he spoke with had the sincere belief in many facets of the stories as literal. Another thing he noticed was their fear. Even men whose last encounter with the dragon was decades old, still described it with that dread in their voice. Its very largeness, compared to mountains, and its very inscrutability and rarity, compared to holy relicts, did nothing to dispel the nebulous mystery of the Golden Dragon. It was more a god than an animal.

After many hours of study and interviews, and Hiccup hadn't come up with anything that satisfied him. As he suspected some of the accounts not to be entirely accurate, he wasn't confident to work out a plan, any plan, when basic facts were under dispute. A dragon made of gold and could return from the dead? Now that was some biology he had to see for himself.

The worst part of it hit him as he was musing on old reports back in his cabin late one night. The immense size of the beast, as described by a shoe maker and his daughter, reminded him of the Red Death. That ancient dragon from a lifetime ago was the queen of its nest, with the ability to command dragons to its bidding, even to the point of forcing them to raid Berk and return food to the nest. The individual dragons were innocent of their violence because they were being controlled. However, no one controlled the Red Death. Among all the dragons he had encountered since then, no dragon expressed that hunger that drove it to intentional violence the way the Red Death asserted itself on its environment. Was this dragon similar?

When he faced the Red Death with Toothless, the solution he came up with was to kill the dragon. It was the only dragon whose life he ever took.

There was one loophole in all this. There was an authority in the dragon world even higher than the queen of the nest - the Alpha species. Throughout the dragon world, there was ever only one Alpha who presided over all dragons. Dragons would obey his call and his duty was to protect them all. And last time he checked, Toothless was the Alpha. He had won the right from the Bewilderbeast and led the flock of dragons from New Berk under his own authority. Even today, all dragons in the Nordic archipelagos were hearing his call to come home and to return to the hidden world of dragons. If there was anyone whom the Golden Dragon would listen to, it would be Toothless.

The thought ached in his soul. He had let his buddy go free, and every day tested his conviction, nay his resolve, that it was the right thing to do. He missed him terribly, every single hour that his concentration slipped and his intense feelings bobbed to the surface. The nights were the worst, because the Night Fury was no longer by his side, dozing with that slobbering tongue hanging out of his mouth and taking up half the bed to leave Hiccup with nothing except the dragon's unconditional love. He never asked Toothless for anything. The Night Fury would just give him everything. That was his gift.

Slowly, heavy of breath, Hiccup wiped the tears from his eyes. Drops stained the parchment below of the account of the shoe maker and his daughter.

Slowly, Hiccup put the report back on the table. He walked out of his cabin into the torch-lit hallway. There wasn't anyone at all. He began to walk. A little ways distant, there was the door that he had seen Bain enter a few days ago. How afraid the boy was to go inside. Ever since that night they met, Hiccup sheltering him from harm and Bain somehow comforting his spirit, Hiccup hadn't spoken with him since. He awoke to find Bain already gone, and he never saw him until the next day. Bain was accompanying Chief Barmek for dinner, and even with immense cordiality, the fear was still real in his darting glances, like that of a lamb trapped with a Monstrous Nightmare. If Bain hadn't made him promise not to tell anyone, Hiccup would have gone straight to Hagen about it. He had to speak to him again, make the young man see reason and change his mind. Get those injuries cared for.

With cautious recklessness, Hiccup planted his hand on the door and pushed it open. It swung easily into a spacious living area. Large tables, ornate chairs, several paintings of battle scenes. And to the far right, in the corner, was a giant metal cage imprisoning two dragons.

_Two_ _dragons_ \- baby Timberjacks, to be precise. Unmistakable the large horned heads, bug-eyes, long snout and very large wing area even on dragons as young as this. Both cramped behind bars, both staring curiously at Hiccup.

Unbelievable.

In the space of time between heartbeats, Hiccup was at their side. The dragon children cawed with fright at the sudden boldness of this human. Each tried to bite his fingers, but this particular human was more wily than most. They were thin and their ribs showed, so they hadn't been fed properly in a while. Of course not. The feeding habits of young Timberjacks required music. He had heard it once while scaling a cliff searching for a rare dragon species. As his foot caught in a cleft, a delicate musical sequence hummed very close by, obscured by the rocks. It was lyrical, and quiet, almost a whisper that one must strain to hear. And as he clung there on the vertical cliff face, hearing music from the rocks, a huge dragon descended from the sky. She nearly landed on him, and yet, never paid him mind. Her long jaws went straight for the sound, and upon finding it, replied in the most crooning, warbling melody that he had ever known.

In that moment, Hiccup began to sing. It was the awkward, hesitant singing of a stranger trying to mimic a mother's voice. Some notes, too high, he improvised, and others he struggled to recount in proper sequence. But slowly, immediately, the dragons grew still, eyes following the movements of his throat, a yearning in their faces. And slowly, with hesitation, they began to sing. High-pitched, playful, warbling notes. The subdued rush of the ocean outside formed the bass of an emerging composition, as human and dragon sang as one.

When the melody died into the night, a single applause rose in acknowledgement. Hiccup stiffened and turned his head. Chief Barmek stood there, hands clapping steadily and deliberately, and also Bain, standing beside the chief, head held low but eyes eagerly watching. The man, Barmek, flashed his toothless grin and guffawed loudly in the echoing room. "Didn't know you were a singing man, Hiccup! What a nice voice you have!" His laughter died down as his whole demeanor grew serious, fingers absently playing with the teeth on his necklace. "A very nice voice." Barmek strode closer to Hiccup, his huge body and neckless head engulfing his entire field of vision. The dragons shouted nastily and scratched their razor-sharp wings against the metal bars, with no effect. "Shut up!" he barked at them, then zoomed into Hiccup, pinning him against the wall next to the cage. His thick, strong palms pressed Hiccup's shoulders back against the cold wood, as the man stared into him face-to-face. "Please," came a weak protest from Bain somewhere in the back of the room, but Hiccup couldn't see him.

"Don't yer mess with my dragons." Barmek cooed menacingly into Hiccup's face. This man, who hated Hiccup's guts during the Skreva council and declared openly his intentions to war with Berk, was now acting eerily friendly in comparison. Barmek smiled, cocked his head, and pushed Hiccup's chin up with a fat forefinger. "You be a bad boy, Hiccup."

Hiccup stared daggers into Barmek. "You're abusing those dragons. If they aren't fed properly, they will starve to death. They need their mother!"

The large blue eyes of Barmek filled Hiccup's vision, as that smelly, huge face drew closer, inches away from his own. The eyes sneered. "Isn't that your job, Bain? Don't them rascals give you a hard time, Bain? Biting, bruising, breaking, eating poor Bain," spoke the eyes, never glancing away to the right or the left, never losing intensity. "I be a reasonable man. I say, 'Evil dragons be punished.' So I tell Bain, it's you or them. He didn't want to eat it, you know? But it was very tasty."

Hiccup felt the blood drain out of him. "You monster," he spat, his head thudding the back of the wall and his hands fumbling against the immovability of Barmek's massive body. Barmek laughed in his face, hands pushing his chest painfully against the wall. "Soft boy! Dragon-lovin' boy! There be no good bones in yer body. I fix you. You be just like Bain," and the sudden anger and mirth welled up in the man's livid-red skin. He grabbed Hiccup's face, fingers clenching the skull and jawline, and - lifting the head forward for a second - suddenly shoved Hiccup's head backwards into the wall. The hit was so forceful that Hiccup's vision blanked, excruciating pain screaming from his entire realm of awareness. He gasped for breath as Barmek pulled his head forward again, inches from his toothless, curling lips: "You be mine."

In that moment, Barmek screamed in the most horrific agony. He let go of Hiccup completely as he leapt up and wildly turned around. Large wings flapped and furious screams shouted from the pair of Timberjacks now flying freely in the room. "Filthy-" Barmek screamed, but the dragons gashed him again with the swords of their razor-sharp wings. Standing besides the empty cage was Bain, who held the keys in his limp hand. His face was contorted into the image of exhilarated horror. Barmek raged and lunged for Bain. But a sharp metal foot suddenly stamped smack on Barmek's boot, sending the man howling with pain and crashing headfirst into the floor.

"Now!" Hiccup shouted to Bain, grabbing his hand and running out of the cabin. Dragon wings agitated somewhere behind them, banging against the hallway of the ship and screeching after the two fleeing boys. Liquid beads still roamed in Hiccup's vision as he blundered desperately out of the depths of the hull, gasping for breath, starving for air. His whole world throbbed with anguish. Hiccup clenched Bain's hand so hard that he propelled the boy forward like a hawk carrying off its prey. Somewhere down in the depths, the raging bellows of a man thundered into the very structure of the ship, a thunder that was rumbling closer to the surface with every second.

Hiccup had reached the freezing surface, the lines of the deck and the curve of the mast awash with the brilliant cold of the full moon. The storm that had plagued the journey for days had lifted enough that patches of bright black sky shone among the fibrous, dark, and drifting clouds. Terns hovered along at the zenith of the sky, slippery fish among the stars, in a world untouched by the misery far below. Hiccup still held tight the hand of the boy, still shaking together in the brisk cold breeze as both breathed heavily in the night air.

The two Timberjacks emerged first, squawking ferociously and pumping their wings with incredible energy into the dark, endless sky. They climbed to an incredible altitude and cried mournfully into the distance, leaving the world of Vikings far behind. Finally, they had found their freedom.

Once they were gone, their farthest sounds as indistinguishable as lapping waves, Barmek sauntered out of the hold of the ship, stepping into the grim moonshine of the deck. An ugly gash spurted blood down his forehead. He rose to the height of his giant, neckless frame, wiping off the spluttering essences of the wound with his bare arm, his tongue licking at the blood bathing half his face. "You want to play rough? I show you rough. You can't get away. I get what I want!

Without warning, a red-headed woman stepped between the monster and the boys. Esmee, with impatient anger in her eyes, stared at Hiccup before turning her wrath upon Barmek. She dropped the fur coat from her shoulders, revealing a sword belted to her waist. Unsheathing it, she swung it toward Barmek and issued a challenge: "Chief Barmek, you are out of order. There will be no fighting on the flagship of Hagen the Red. All of you are under the jurisdiction and the vengeance of Chief Hagen. As his wife, I execute his will. If you spill the blood of the Chief of Berk, then I will spill yours."

A crowd began to gather on the deck, especially many women, who wore fur coats and leather suits similar to Esmee's. Many of them were red-headed like her. Keeping their distance, they formed a curious crust of an audience to the strange dispute. Their faces betrayed no emotion, no indication of their viewpoint on the validity of one side or the other. Barmek snorted but didn't make a move. Hiccup let go of Bain's hand, and, trying to control the vertigo in his head, marched forward to Esmee. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Hagen join the growing audience on the deck.

"I demand to have my own sword. I won't tolerate attacks on me or my friends. I am a guest on your ship and should be treated as such."

Esmee looked down at him from over her shoulder, a cool regard in her eyes. Was it contempt, or respect? With a swift motion of her hand, one of the women standing unobtrusively in the audience stepped forward, approached Hiccup, and bowed with one knee on the floor. She presented her own sword to him. Hiccup took the weapon wordlessly, though he wanted to thank her. Words of gratefulness in this place would only be a sign of weakness.

Now, Hiccup turned from Esmee and Barmek and approached Hagen himself. The man towered there like a dark mountain peak silhouetted against the shifting sky, and remained just as calm as he carefully followed Hiccup's movements. Hiccup fastened the sword to his own waist and stood there in the rising wind. "Chief Hagen, tell me - do you tolerate injustice in your midst?"

Hagen smiled. "You know that's a trick question."

"Yeah, it is. Because there's a young man here, named Bain, who's been seriously wounded by Chief Barmek. Tonight I've also been attacked by the Chief himself in his room."

"That's a lie! Look who's bleeding!" Barmek protested, upon which Hagen shrugged. "You have an evidential point, Barmek. However, you have a history of uninhibited behavior. As both of you are chiefs and we are not present at a Viking council, I won't judge either of you. But the violence ends now - tonight. Both parties involved will suspend their quarrel. I expect my allies in a coming war would consider such internal conflict to be foolishness."

"And Bain?" Hiccup asked, "what about his justice?" Hagen countered, "Outside an official council recommending action against him, a chief has the prerogative of innocence both at home and abroad. If the boy wants to pursue a complaint, he must refer the matter to Chief Barmek's council upon the return journey." Hagen folded his arms over his chest, almost physically closing the matter. Barmek laughed softly, hands preening down his sides as if he had just enjoyed a delicious dinner. He may not be allowed to quarrel openly on the flagship of Skreva, but his personal behavior was more than tolerated. Surely a man with that much impunity had no contrary voices to answer to back on his home islands, and certainly none who would dare convict him of a crime against a mere servant boy.

"In that case, I have a request, Chief Hagen," Hiccup stayed the large man from turning away, riling the slightest ever irritation in the lines of his face. "Since it's clear that Bain's interests won't be served here, and he is in fact my own attendant at the Skrevan council, I request that you transfer Bain over to me to become my personal assistant. I will look after all his needs and answer to anyone has a grievance against him."

Hiccup breathed out deeply, still standing on the windswept deck, the back of his head throbbing in quiet rhythm. The pain had receded into the fervency of his own heart. He was capable of standing here all night in the bitter cold, and it would still feel good because here the air was fresh and free, and the dark constricting halls in the belly of the ship felt a million miles away. They would listen to him.

A strange look passed over Hagen's face. One of reflection, or uncertainty. "That is only possible if I were to renounce Bain's Skrevan citizenship and the boy take up citizenship with Berk of his own will. Only then will he formally be under your protection and responsibility."

All eyes fell on Bain. The boy, though quite pale, stood as steadily as he could. He looked at Hiccup almost for approval. Then he glanced to the floor, a single private moment to himself, before straightening his thin frame and stating, "Yes, my honorable Chief of Red Mountain. I humbly request this."

"Very well," Hagen waved his hand, a motion determining the new trajectory of a life. "I renounce your citizenship."

With this, Hiccup approached Bain. He had never offered citizenship to anyone before. Strangers had come to join Berk, for sure, like Eret, yet this was different, something far more important in the eyes of everyone who witnessed it. This was significant not only for Bain, but for anyone seeking refuge from injustice. The world may be indifferent to the suffering of small people, but as one himself, he never would be. He stood in front of Bain, casting a moon-shadow on the youth. As he held out his hand, he smiled. "As Chief of New Berk and the son of Chief Stoick the Vast, I have the authority to offer you a place among my people and a duty in our endeavors. We are a small tribe of an unremarkable island, neither blessed with great wealth nor pleasant climate. But I can tell you what we are - a family. We protect and fight for each other. We will accept you no matter who you are. So long as you are one of us, you will never be alone. Do you accept citizenship into our family?"

On the face of that boy, lined so often with grief, a different emotion took hold. One closer to the first impression Hiccup had seen in Skreva.

Bain said, "Of course, yes." He grasped Hiccup's hand, sealing the covenant.

"Oh, this is beautiful," Barmek mocked loudly, but no one was listening to him. His desires for violent retaliation had been foiled for the night, and he had no choice but to sulk back in his quarters or the mead room. The crowd began to disperse, back to their beds for the night. Hiccup told Bain to sleep in his quarters tonight, and also to ask the servants for salve and other medicines for his injuries. The boy eagerly complied, an almost literal weight lifted from his body as he half-sprinted, half-limped his way below deck. Hiccup would not join him just yet. He had much to discuss with Hagen first.

The women slowly returned below deck, with Esmee speaking to each one in amiable tones. Some of her conversations remained in her native Gallic tongue. From what Hiccup could guess, most of these women originated from the same region as herself, yet their presence on this ship and their possession of weapons meant that they functioned both as wives and warriors to the men of Skreva. Would they also form part of the fighting force once the battles begun? Perhaps after so many years as part of the lives of their captors, they had chosen to side with them over their own blood.

"We give them a good, prosperous life," Hagen said when Hiccup asked him about them. The chief smiled and nodded his head as Esmee, far in the distance and escorting the last woman on the deck, finally retired herself to their chambers below. "At first, the men of Skreva were skeptical of my proposals to train their wives in warfare, but eventually they saw my reasoning. To include someone in the brotherhood of war is to win their undying loyalty. We have raided and conquered many towns due in part to their diligence, skill, and bravery."

Both men walked alone on the moonlit deck, the occasional crash of waves along the stern the only stirring as the wind returned once more to a breeze. Sparkles of light danced in the far distance, what mariners call seamen's mirages. Despite them, land was still far from sight. Hagen grew quiet, musing thoughtfully as he peered down at Hiccup. "Esmee has great respect for you. So do others. I have watched many young chiefs give their first speeches and plead their cases in the Great Hall of Skreva. You may not think so yourself, but you engender a level of trust among people that few have the talent to create."

The dance of light arced gently along the far end of the horizon. Perhaps they were not mirages at all, but a sort of dragon no one knew of, waiting to be discovered at the end of the world. Hiccup's eye traced the path of light as it fell gracefully. Then his gaze fell directly on Hagen. "Why do you flatter me? You like to play games, and maybe I'm not smart enough for them, but I know the difference between right and wrong, and that's all that matters," he stated flatly.

A light brightened within Hagen's features. "You know good and evil, then? Well, you are far wiser than most men in history. Perhaps you are that wise. Nevertheless, I have seen conviction like yours before. I've watched ordinary people and warriors act contrary to their society for what they believed was right. Almost all of them failed, in one way or another."

They had reached the stern of the ship, a black wall separating their feet from the waves beyond. Even in this midnight, the churn was visible along the path already taken on the surface of the sea. Hagen stretched out his hands and grasped the railing, breathing in the expanse of the ocean itself.

"You have something they didn't. Despite your looks, your eloquence and daring draw people to you. Those qualities make for an envied leader. I'm saying, Hiccup, that you and I could very well become rivals." And Hagen laughed with an ease and a clarity of a man confident in his world. He didn't look at Hiccup, only at the sea, as he spoke of something in more intimate terms. "The world is much larger than Skreva or Berk. There are other Vikings in the east, the north, and the west, who haven't ever seen our homes or met our people. Tribes who don't know our stories yet. When I was a boy, I desperately wanted to sail to the farthest edges of the world. Even today, after all the shores I've seen and people I've met, I'm still that little boy. I've compromised on some issues, and I've regretted quite a few decisions I've made over the years, but I don't regret my dreams. Someday, all the Viking world will stand united. The best of us will bring peace and safety to the generations that succeed us. You and I can be that first generation. Viking leaders don't have to compete with one another to improve the lot of their tribes. They can work together."

Twice in their conversations, Hagen had opened up about himself to Hiccup. Possibly it was an invitation for Hiccup to do likewise, or maybe a pure fabrication to test him, or perhaps, the real thing. In any case, Hagen wasn't the type of man to spontaneously do something without a purpose, and what he had given demanded something in return. This time, Hiccup was prepared to reciprocate.

"I can relate to that dream. I once had a similar one about Vikings and dragons. You know as well as I how long we've warred with each other, ever since history first began I suppose. But then one day I discovered something different from what I was taught. We actually could coexist with the enemies in our midst, and those enemies could become our closest friends. I've spent most of my life defending this idea. Even now, as dragons slowly disappear, I still believe that it's possible. No matter how much blood has been shed between us, there is still hope that humans and dragons can find peace. If humans can learn to work with one another, then maybe they can do the same with dragons, too."

"And this is why I will help you. I will do everything in my power to end the war between your armies and the Golden Dragon, not because it will serve my tribe better, or improve relations, or bring wealth. I do it because it's my dream. This dream has served me in every decision I've made in the last six years of my life, and I won't be stopping now. But to make this possible, I need you to trust me. The Golden Dragon is not a creature to be tamed from the notes of old reports or miles away on a ship. I can't give you a plan, only a promise. If you allow me to assemble a team, search for the dragon, and meet him on his own terms, then I will do my job to the best of my ability. I train dragons, it's all I know. And I will show you how to train a dragon."


	8. A Dragon Made of Gold

There is an utterly unique feeling to stepping off the edge of the world. It feels a little like death, but in a good way. You see a white limestone shore beneath a verdant green landscape, and you know you've never set eyes on a land like this before. There are no forbidding island mountains nor glacier-trapped fjords, and only the white cliffs reflect anything incongruous with what can only be Valhalla on earth. Perhaps that was why Vikings of every age returned to these shores again and again. Deep within every warrior is that final desire to die, and glimpse the peace on the other side.

But Vikings being what they are, war was brought to heaven. Even towns that could only be described as beautiful, that were surrounded for miles around with flourishing farmland and thriving networks of cobbled roads, fell silent with the approaching thud of Viking boots. The taste of fear was heavy in the air, in the soil, in the water. Even as Hagen's numerous armada and vast numbers of troops were left behind, moored at an uninhabited coastline, the communities farther inland possessed almost a hyperactive sense of the oncoming doom. Hiccup and his companions met almost no travelers on the road, and the few that they did glimpse, altered course very hurriedly, stealing furtive glances in Hiccup's direction until they were specks of prey far and safe from the Viking predator. Vestiges of previous carnage strewn the roadsides every so often: burnt stone houses for five miles one way, blackened skeletons and skulls in a spot ten miles farther. They weren't even bothered to be buried properly.

Hiccup kept his disgust, shame, and sorrow to himself. There was no point in even imagining the acquitting idea that some local war had caused all this. He would not even entertain the possibility. Years of stories and his own eyes had made clear what a Viking raid can do. He only was sorry that such small indignation was so late in coming.

He wondered what Astrid thought about all this. She was the model Viking after all, the one after his own father whom he admired and tried so desperately to be when he was young. She walked beside him now, largely silent for long stretches of time, as miles and miles passed beneath their feet. He had never been the strongest advocate of the Viking way of life, but what would she say about her own heritage and what it meant for her identity?

He had even less idea what was going on inside the minds of the other members of his hand-picked team. Well, almost hand-picked, more guided really. It was incredible enough that Hagen allowed him out of his sight and with the relative freedom of a small force that Hiccup himself commanded. That he couldn't take Ruffnut and Fishlegs along, or for that matter any of his other warriors besides Astrid, was only to be expected. He chose a guide for the countryside and two warriors to accompany him, both of the red-headed wives whom Esmee personally recommended for their prowess and loyalty. Hagen outfitted the rest of the soldiers from Chief Barmek's troop, led under Commander Ugthar. Finally, Bain was only too happy to join Hiccup's select teammembers. In all, twelve very different individuals joined for a mission to find and tame a ravenous, undying dragon.

Where do you go to find a dragon made of gold?

From what Hiccup surmised, it would be a place that offered gold in return. Between his study of the reports and the guide's knowledge of the land and its customs, the town of Javaudieu, several miles inland and to the west, would have to do. It held the longest tradition of the festival of sacrifice to the Golden Dragon, a tradition that had spread to neighboring towns but for which this place took special precedence in scale and sacredness. There were two festivals in a year, one of the spring equinox and the other of the autumn, where gifts were offered to the dragon. It just so happened that today was the day before the autumnal equinox.

The festivities were right on schedule. The rolling lush landscape was bifurcated by a stream and a parallel line of elm trees, so unusually mature and lofty across an otherwise low-profile topography. Though the town stood rooted at the fork of the waters, its sacrifices were held two miles away, underneath the shade of the largest trees beside the upstream section of river. Colorful streamers hung from the low branches and children darted among the bystanders as participants paused at huge piles of material in the center of the crowd. These heaps, upon closer distance, appeared to contain all manner of physical possessions of the townsfolk, of chairs, barn doors, metal sickles and swords. Another collection was more accurately described as a high-density, fenced-in group of cattle and sheep, situated next to the first heap. And there was an empty place for a third heap, a white stone platform lined along its edges with shiny black stones and gold chunks, that otherwise held nothing but the dread of its imminent occupant: a human sacrifice.

That gold was lying un-stolen among a milling crowd was more than enough proof to Hiccup of the incredible belief of these people.

Once Hiccup and his gang were seen as something other than extra spectators, the sight of arriving Vikings set off the usual markers of extreme concern. The mood of the crowd stiffened as individuals huddled together in fearful bundles, hundreds of pairs of eyes gazing in the same direction. The town center was too far away to hide in, and the road to the south or north was too forlorn and endless to flee upon. Commander Ugthar's forces rapidly drew nearer the helpless populace, despite the few who took up the swords from the first pile to defend the vast majority who were without weapons.

"Ugthar - we are not killing anyone!" Hiccup shouted behind the Viking commander, a hulk of a man who was hard to distinguish from front or behind, both the black beard and hair churning downward like thick moss covering the welts of a giant bear. The man never flinched at Hiccup's command. Not a good sign. Ugthar grabbed one of the townsmen by the scruff of the neck; immediately, the frightened man dropped the sword on the ground. A small grim smile played on Ugthar's face; he unsheathed his own sword and held the edge across the man's throat. But he did not kill him.

"I don't have all day, chief," he mentioned sardonically in Hiccup's direction. Ugthar's men were rounding up the townsfolk into a manageable square-shaped cluster, slapping the backs of crying children to get in line with their mothers. The women warriors were also herding the people, though this time speaking in their native language. This small act of connection helped greatly to becalm the populace and create a semblance of order.

"This is sick," Astrid finally muttered something. Her eyes glanced into Hiccup's with real worry, as not even her usual grit was prepared for this. Hiccup had commanded for none of this to happen, yet Ugthar's holding an innocent man at sword-point was a not-so-subtle message to him that he still wasn't in control. Hagen had chosen his men well.

In a moment like this, a person must choose sides, even if temporarily. Astrid Hofferson, proud daughter of Phlegma Hofferson and the best warrior of her generation on Berk, wasn't about to let her training go to waste. No, she would play the consummate Viking. She must have spotted the leader of these Gauls right away, for she swung her axe and pointed directly at a short elderly man with wild gray sideburns. He wore entirely black clothes and, except for the sideburns, sported a very bald head. He willingly stepped forward and jerked as Astrid urged him onward and barked, "Move!"

She brought him to Hiccup. Hiccup stared at her, almost mouthing what are you doing?! and her immediate, fiery-eyed response being saving your butt! Her spoken reply was less tart: "I'm sure this guy knows what this is all about."

Here's where the guide, Halfdan, made himself most useful. He spoke the local dialect as fluently as can be expected of a true-born Viking, even though that status was disputed by some who reckoned he was Celtic on his mother's side. He stood to the left side between Hiccup and the elderly man, the Gaul strangely serene in the midst of the dangers on every side. For once, Hiccup wished that he could trade places with a hostage.

Hiccup gulped a small morsel of air. Here goes nothing.

"Hello, men and women of Jav-doo," he hoped Halfdan corrected that pronunciation, "I hope we find you well."

Hiccup mentally hit his face on a wall. Astrid's horrified expression said everything. That was the stupidest opening speech by a Viking invader bar none. He might as well ask how the weather was going for them, too.

Rephrase: "I'm Hiccup of the armies of Hagen the Red, Viking chief who has sailed to your lands. We come in search of a dragon. Are you the leader of this people?"

As Halfdan translated, Hiccup's glance saw parts of the crowd ripple in reaction. Recognition surely. Of the dragon or Hagen, not known. The man patiently listened to the whole message, a bit more lengthy in his own tongue, before replying in kind as Halfdan spoke for him. Underneath Halfdan's hurried, monotone rendition, the original voice was steady, methodical, and full of pauses. The voice was rich in lyricism just like Esmee's, except the full force of its complexity and beauty eluded Hiccup like the hues in a clam's iridescent shell.

"I am Leonce. This is Javaudieu. Our people are at your service."

A further translation, and then: "I am a priest. I care for the people. Ask me any questions."

Hiccup thought of something. He began to walk toward the heaps of offerings ahead of him, causing Halfdan, Leonce, Astrid, and a few other warriors to move in tandem with him. He walked past the first pile, the one of wood and metal possessions. "This is for the dragon?" he stretched out his hand, glanced at Leonce, who nodded slowly, without a word. Hiccup turned away, kept walking to the second pile, this time the pen of sheep and cattle quietly lowing in cramped boredom. This time Leonce volunteered his voice: "All this we give to the dragon. For the protection of the people." Finally, Hiccup approached the third and last monument, the empty stone slab with rocks and gold stones lining its edges. He paused, and looked at Leonce intently. "What is offered for the dragon here?"

A soft light seemed to shine from the man's old eyes. He bowed his head, then gazed at the people behind him. The crowd watched back with unmoving sight, not reacting, only waiting. Leonce gazed once again at Hiccup, something strong in his face now, clenching his jaws. "We are the offering. The dragon needs only one for satisfaction. One person offers himself, and we are spared for a time." The old man hesitated, then said, "In our religion, blood offered for the people will save them. Redemption is in the blood. As a Viking, you believe different customs."

"Yes, I do," Hiccup said softly, still staring at the slab. His heart sank. Any doubts he had over the veracity of those reports and the witnesses on the ship were wiped clean. Emotions rose within him, as his mind reached into the past. How many offerings, two a year, for a hundred years? Two hundred people. How many had gone willingly to their deaths?

"Who is the offering this time?" he suddenly asked, full of anxiety. Halfdan troubled to translate that phrase a little more deliberately this time, and Leonce turned once again to the crowd, pointing towards someone. Near the feet of the man held at sword-point by Commander Ugthar, a small woman stepped forward. She was dressed in a simple blue frock, and must have been no older than fourteen. Wrapped around her wrists was a string of rope, loosely fastened, but otherwise, no other form of coercion was visible.

"No," he heard himself saying. "No," he turned to Leonce. "I forbid this. No one must die."

Leonce flinched with discomfort, then subtle anger. "If there is no sacrifice, then all die. The dragon already comes. Nothing can be done!" His throat rasped through a mix of emotions hard to distinguish among anguish, alarm, and exasperation. Hiccup stood by the stone platform and held up one of the many shiny black stones lined around it. His eyes flashed accusingly. "These stones are full of magnetic force. If you know what that means or not, the dragon must be able to track these. You put these out every festival, right? A few days before the ceremony? Gods!" Hiccup threw the rock into the dirt. Facing away from everyone, heaving breath in front of the dark trunks of the elm trees, he breathed painfully. "You lure the dragon here, every time."

Poor Halfdan was muttering translations at a frenzied pace. A surprised Leonce was caught between paying very close attention to the string of utterances or watching Hiccup closely, a young Viking who had just made an unpredictable, threatening gesture. His face gave the impression that he only half-understood Hiccup's rant. "Those are ceremonial stones. Yes I put them on the altar. But dragon comes with them or not. He always does."

Hiccup sighed deeply. He slowly turned, facing Leonce, with a sad sympathy replacing the lividness of before. "The dragon must have the position already fixed once he's sensed it. He's been returning here for a hundred years, after all," he said quietly, more to himself than anyone else. "Must have been an accident, back in the beginning. Maybe the dragon really is made of gold after all." Then Hiccup fell silent. The people before him were silent. Even the Viking warriors, for all their easy bravado around the townsfolk, had grown awfully still in these past few minutes. Hiccup realized what had happened. The sun had gone down.

What was that he had read in the account of the shoemaker and his daughter, besides the colossal size? That the Golden Dragon, once drawn to the offering, would often arrive far swifter than the sunrise to consume the prepared feasts before the official holiday had begun? The account stated that this occurred during the previous three festivals at the town of Javaudieu. Hiccup wasn't taking any chances. This was his single opportunity.

"I will be the sacrifice instead," he pointed to the girl and addressed Leonce hastily: "Are there any other procedures I need to undergo first? Because this is gonna end tonight. No one else needs to die. You gotta believe me." Hiccup was at a loss for words. How can he explain it to these people? They would never believe him in a million years.

"What in blazes are you doing?" Astrid grabbed his right arm, her voice irate with shock. Behind her, Leonce was gazing at Hiccup quizzically, before finally untying the girl. Hiccup shrugged his shoulders. "Doing something insanely stupid." He stopped himself from laughing. "And maybe tonight, I'll finally get some answers." Astrid smirked, shook her head. "Do you honestly think I'll let a dragon eat you?"

For the first time in a long time, Hiccup grinned, more to himself than for her benefit. His breath came out ragged, a great sigh of relief. "I'm counting on it."

The ceremony did not take long. Every person from miles around was gathered round the platform underneath the great elm trees, as Hiccup stood before the Gallic priest and the Nordic warriors, assembled in a solemn line on either side of the altar. A few of the local women helped him change from his dragon armor into a plain blue tunic and pants. He could not bring a weapon, so he gave his sword to Astrid. Bain collected all his clothes and notes, all the possessions he had. It felt strange not to feel the protective cover of dragon scales against his skin. He held out his wrists as Leonce fastened them with rope, a low chanting rhythm humming from the priest's throat. The words were left untranslated, as perhaps even Halfdan didn't know what they meant. As Hiccup shivered in the wind and twilight fell deeper into night, the priest cried out louder. He walked slowly around Hiccup as he swung a small metal globe, releasing a pungent scent into the air. He threw a little spray of water on Hiccup, almost resembling the action of a man spitting at someone, except this was done with great dignity. Such customs were strange indeed, but they left Hiccup curiously in awe. As the final step in this process, Leonce studied Hiccup intently, and spoke directly to Halfdan. The expression on Halfdan's face was odd; he then asked Hiccup to recite a string of foreign words verbatim. "What is it?" Hiccup asked. Halfdan murmured, "It's a pledge of oneself to the Golden Dragon."

Hiccup's heart skipped a beat. He very slowly and carefully pronounced the words. Leonce closed his eyes, head bowed in reverence. Hiccup glanced outward beyond the old man. Many faces were watching, young men and old women with clothes and features different from his own. He may not know their language, but he could tell incredulity when he saw it. He was a fool to them, a very strange fool indeed. But belief in the ceremony ran too strong for anyone to break the spell of the beautifully absurd.

Hiccup saw Leonce motion towards him, to approach the altar himself. Hiccup complied, found the short marble steps easily. He wasn't sure what to do after he stood on top of the platform. But the priest gently guided him down, his hand holding the back of his head, until Hiccup lay lengthwise on his back on the cold white stone. Hiccup kept his eyes trained upward, his bound hands folded on his chest, confident that if anything went wrong, Astrid was there to deal with it. The crowd seemed to slowly melt away after a few more minutes of closing ceremony. The last conversations subsided as the stars began to glow. The priest remained somewhere to the left extreme of his vision, a sword in his belt and his back resting against a gnarly trunk. The lone guard ensuring that there would be a victim for the dragon come morning light.

Hours passed. There was no longer the novelty of lying on a stiff chill stone surface into the early morning of the first autumn day. Any feelings of anticipation or fear had long ago receded into the purely physical sensation of cold skin against cool, polished granite. He lay as still as he dared, trying to relax, as the clank of his metal foot indicated those moments when the body tired of complying. The night had long ago ceased to be dark to his eyes, the thick-limbed scatter of branches above him breaking the sky into separate stories. Constellations rotated through their narratives in the heavens, visiting their light on the earth through fragments in the leafy canopy. The trees, huge, vast trunks of beings silent and stern in the darkness, where the holy ones of the place. Spirits were said to hide in the crook of elm branches, revealing themselves at night through the whistle of the twigs. Small creatures did scuttle from clusters of leaves and fly into the night continually, darting here and there, catching stars. The same stars he used to name to Toothless, on the nights they camped outside in the moonlit circle of the cove. As Hiccup faced these long stretches of time, he chose to dwell on the Night Fury. There wasn't anything in the world like spending time with your best friend, especially when you are alone. When distance and time separate your soulmate from yourself, love grows all the more fonder and determined. Only hate compares to how love sustains itself in the absence of its source.


	9. The Longing Hours

The same bright night fell above other horizons. The air was just as cold, and the perspective, as breathtaking, from this height. The Night Fury's eyes were created for this view. And yet, why did it summon a thrilling twist inside his chest, every time he pumped his wings farther into infinity?

The long silver line of the twilight had curved past the ends of the earth by now. Far away, playful lines leapt and shone along the horizon, dragons who lived far above the sky in a place not even he could reach. Out here in the endlessness, freedom was not an abstract concept. It was the breeze without the leaves, the clouds beneath your toes, the spaces between absolutely nothing. In a place without boundaries, where nothing could stop nor catch you, your mind should be anything but anxious. And yet Toothless felt troubled, far down in his soul.

He lacked for nothing in the paradise of the hidden world. His time was never short of exploring new corners of the vast realm and meeting and assisting other dragons in coexisting with a thousand other species. He felt validated, at peace, and his subjects reflected the confidence of their Alpha. He led flocks to a new breeding ground, deep inside the inner falls, where eggs could be kept safe by mothers and fathers nesting on mossy velvet cliffs perfect for the purpose. No longer would nests be isolated on various promontories scattered within the vast caverns, but communal nurseries would remain together, knitting the young in a bond across species. His offspring would hatch there, too, and open their eyes for the first time upon the edge of the waterfall, spray thundering like a lightning storm, just like the nest he grew up in. Yes, he remembered now. For so many years those memories had remained dormant. But the farther he flew into the caverns, the more sentient his instincts grew. He remembered what his father and mother taught him about flight and hunting for food; he recalled the Red Death's nest and the screaming dive bombs of his nightly attacks. Most of all, he spent time in the present. He brought food every evening to the tall eyre of the Light Fury, even though her babies were far from birth yet. It was a courtship that he choreographed all over again, just for the pleasure of it. There was no one to tell him how to love her, no queen dragon to command when to raid and when to feed. This world was his alone.

And yet, the very feeling of perfection yearned to be shared. Those who lived all their lives in the hidden world hadn't really the appreciation for its beauty that he felt as an outsider. He found himself often hanging around with the dragons of Berk. Stormfly was a great friend, and so were Cloudjumper, Meatlug, Hookfang, and Barf and Belch. They understood him. They too were sometimes startled by the bounty of their new home, and often banded together in ferreting out its depths and risking its dangers. Even the oldest of homes held treacherous fates for a dragon who was not careful among its precipitous towers and secret lakes. Toothless relished the danger and the exploration. They were acquired tastes hard to change, learned when he liked neither, from a very dear friend who taught him the beauty of both.

Though Hiccup had insisted that Toothless go and lead the dragons to safety away from the human world, Toothless couldn't resist the idea of visiting his friend soon after he arrived at this place. A few things delayed the desire, such as the exciting prospect of his becoming a dad, but eventually, he gathered a small flock of dragons to go with him on a journey to New Berk. They flew by cover of darkness, a precaution for any human attack. He remembered how much Stormfly reminisced about Astrid and how Cloudjumper led the pack in the flight, eager to glimpse Valka once more. Everyone was so thrilled.

But it was in vain. For when they arrived at New Berk, all the newly-built houses were empty and the ships gone from their moorings. Not a single human being was left to explain the disappearance of everyone they had spent the last six years of their lives with. Toothless called out for a search of the area, speeding upon the highest winds of the skies surrounding the mountainous island. Skullcrusher traced the scent for many miles south across the oceans, but eventually even that vanished in the open water. A storm had passed across the area only a few days before, erasing all traces of the people of Berk.

Long after the other dragons returned to the homeworld, Toothless kept searching. Every island he encountered and boat he saw bore no faces he recognized. He called eagerly, then mournfully across the empty spaces, hoping for that one person in the whole world who knew his voice by heart. Over and over again, he wondered over the same two questions: Where was Hiccup, and was he safe? Ever since he left his boy, he had heard no report of him anywhere. After so many dragons that he called and guided home, how could none of them have seen him?

Days he flew without pause, never touching the ground or the sea. He fed on birds and rainwater, never daring to dip below a high enough altitude for reconnaissance. Even in light sleep his wing muscles locked in position, powering a glide sustained by the rising convective air of thunderstorms below his path. Sometimes, in that delirium of half-wakefulness, he thought he heard a cry. Not a human one, but a dragon's, unknown among any of his acquaintances, a voice more of his dreams. Its high pitch almost escaped his hearing, yet it was strong,vibrant, and musical. It must have been very far away. The cry was calling for someone, voicing a name into the distance, and from its fervency, he knew that someone meant a lot to the dragon. It made his heart ache with the same yearning, two strangers sharing a kindred separation.

So on this night after so many fruitless days and nights, as Toothless grew exhausted and despairing, someone finally answered his call. He had traveled to the ends of the archipelagos, to the shores of every coastline, and yet she had found him even here.

The Light Fury arced across the high dome of the night sky, appearing like a shooting star. The wind was breathless underneath her wings as she easily caught up to the Night Fury's slower, steadier glide. She purred her soft, lolling coos when she came alongside him. Her face smiled brightly. _My dear one, you've been gone too long. I missed you._

Toothless gazed at the deep comfort of her eyes, watched her head cock so attentively in his direction as their wingtips brushed in midair. He loved when they did that. She was the only one who could ever catch up to him, who was as agile and swift as the lightning like him. The only one he'd ever wager who could race him and win. He wanted to race with her some time, after she had their young. There were so many places he wanted to show her and adventures to embark on, tricks to teach her and new ideas to share. Just like Hiccup had shown him when he was young. In a small way, he now understood what it felt like to be Hiccup all those years. Now he, too, had someone to show the world to.

_I missed you, too,_ he purred in reply.

_Come home with me_, she chirped in short, quiet notes. Then her eyes grew somber, and her wingbeats more closely hovered near his own. _I know you are worried for your friend. I wish you could find him. _And she hummed a slow warble of sadness. The acknowledgement of his loss made the Night Fury even more sorrowful. He cawed sharp, painful notes, one, two, three barks into the sky, hours of silent frustration bubbling up inside him. A streak of acetylene fire whizzed and died in the distance. The Light Fury waited patiently for his reaction to rise and fall to its conclusion. For a while, they flew silently. Then she rose a little higher above him, creating space between them both. She mewed, _what if you don't find Hiccup?_

_I will find Hiccup_, and the certainty was still as confident as ever, not even barely diminished by the harsh reality around him. When Toothless believed in something or someone, he did with his whole heart. The Light Fury didn't know Hiccup like he did. She didn't understand what kind of human he was. Toothless murmured eagerly. _He is the smartest human I've ever met. He must have a reason to disappear. I must find out what happened._

The Light Fury replied in concern. _The other dragons grow worried with your absence. They need you, and so do I._

_I know. I want to come home._ Toothless fiercely acknowledged.

She grew quiet once again, the glow of her skin above him reminiscent of moonlight on the water's surface. The waves undulated far below, rhythmic sounds matching the soft click of something deep in her throat. She mused thoughtfully, not yet sharing her reflection for a while, until at the right time she spoke again. _You care for him very much. What does he mean to you?_

What could he say to that? So many thoughts competed at once, and yet none alone was sufficient to convey his true feelings. He could not compare Hiccup to a father or mother, or a mate or a child. Not even as another member of a flock. Out of desperation, he said simply, _he is my very best friend. I would do anything for him._ And yet even that felt hollow and insufficient, capturing only the fruit of so many years of growth in root and limb.

And yes, even those memories were returning. Long years ago, when he was injured one fateful night, trapped and starving in a hole in the ground. He was all alone. No dragon heard his cries. That's the day Hiccup found him. On that day, his life was changed forever.

The story spilled out of him swiftly. He told her everything about Hiccup and how they met. He told how Hiccup made him fly again and saved him from serving the Red Death. He described how he fought for him in a kill ring, and how he almost lost him in a fiery explosion. They had won a great battle together, one which liberated humans and dragons alike and begun the peaceful coexistence of age-old enemies. They also found a way to live together and fly as one, the boy matching his own movements in flight as he clung to his back as if they shared one mind. Hiccup loved to fly. That's what he remembered most about the boy -- that exquisite, carefree, competitive obsession with the open sky and feeling free within it. Hiccup had dared him to push his boundaries as a dragon in a way he had never imagined before. Hiccup was a dragon in everything except his body.

How could a human be a dragon without the body of one? The Light Fury's curiosity was piqued. Toothless told her that it was hard to explain, and that he preferred not to think about it too much. Some things you just have to experience yourself. That's one of the things Hiccup had taught him. There was always something wonderful beyond the next hill, a new place to see or a friend to make, and even the dangers weren't something to fear, but overcome. Dragons fought their enemies and protected their own, but Hiccup went out of his way to help strangers. That's what Toothless tried to do as an Alpha, for all the dragons in the world. It was a much bigger job than he realized, but it was his destiny. Just like he and Hiccup were destined to meet, all those years ago.

As Toothless ended his reminiscence, the Light Fury called softly.

_If he means that much to you,_ she purred, _then he is important to me, too. I want all things for you that make you happy. And we will find him -- together._

She rose farther into the night, blending in with the passing shreds of cloud. More than all the things that made him adore her, tonight she had made him happiest by far. He chortled like a nestling up at her, her optimistic presence soothing the long hours of disappointment. With one accord, the two Furies lifted into the night.

Their path would not last long without meeting someone new. For just ahead, also lost and forlorn and exhausted, flew two other dragons. They struggled over the endless oceans, towards the north but without a clear idea where they needed to go. They were the offspring of one of the many dragons whom Toothless had led to safety, the Timberjack mother who mourned after her lost children. They had escaped from captivity on a Viking ship sailing for the southern horizon. And they had just met a strange boy who sang to them in their mother's voice.

Finally, Toothless would have his answer.


End file.
